


Bespoke

by fettuccine_alfreylo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Academy Awards, Actor Ben Solo, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Anal Play, Babymaking kink, Ben Solo has no chill, Blow Jobs, Breeding Kink, Clothed Sex, Clothing Porn, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Enemies to Lovers, Engagement, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fashion & Couture, Fashion Stylist Rey, Fight Sex, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Jealousy, Light Bondage, Possessive Behavior, Scent Kink, Shower Sex, Size Difference, Spanking, Vaginal Fingering, Wall Sex, all the clothing kinks, and Rey secretly loves it, and a yoga pants kink, he also has a skirt kink, mentions of future pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:18:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fettuccine_alfreylo/pseuds/fettuccine_alfreylo
Summary: When new stylist Rey Jackson receives a request to dress the hottest (and most unfashionable) new actor in Hollywood, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.Mentally AND physically.Because Ben Solo is freaking massive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stories_in_my_head](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stories_in_my_head/gifts).



**Bespoke** (adj): Used to describe a garment custom–made from scratch to a customer's specific measurements and requirements. Its origin dates back to the days when a customer ordering a garment would select and reserve a cloth that was then “bespoken” or “spoken for”.

\---

From: Leia Organa-Solo (leia.o.solo@skywalkersologroup.org)  
To: Maz Kanata (mazkanata@kanatastyling.com)  
Date: December 8, 2018, 8:09 AM

**Subject: Help an old friend?**

Maz,

I have a favor to ask of you. As you may know, Ben is getting a lot of buzz for Starkiller. He’s just been nominated for a Golden Globe and is slated for an Oscar nom as well. Han and I are tremendously proud of him for receiving so much acclaim for his first film performance. With the award season just a few weeks away, we also want him to look the part (his new manager Armitage Hux agrees). This is where you come in.

Ben is a bit...rough around the edges. He’s still a stage actor at heart and isn’t used to this newfound attention. He’d never forgive me if he knew I’m telling you this, but he is in desperate need of a wardrobe overhaul. A complete image rebranding, even. I’m sure your schedule is packed, but is there any way you can fit him in and work some of your Maz magic on him?

Happy Holidays,

Leia

 

From: Maz Kanata (mazkanata@kanatastyling.com)  
To: Leia Organa-Solo (leia.o.solo@skywalkersologroup.org)  
Date: December 8, 2018, 9:24 AM

**Subject: Re: Help an old friend?**

My dear,

Dressing you in that white de la Renta gown for the ‘77 Academy Awards remains my proudest accomplishment. You were the client that single handedly launched the career I have now. I’ll never forget that. Of course I will help Ben. Don’t worry about my schedule; I have an entire team of trustworthy and hardworking consultants to help. He’ll be up to snuff in no time. When can we meet to talk things through? It’s been too long.

Much love,

Maz

\---

“Rey, darling. How would you feel about being the head stylist for a new client? An actor. Golden Globe nominee.”

Rey glances up from the latest edition of Vogue that she’s cut to shreds, locking eyes with the small yet mighty woman perched on the edge of her desk. After working at Kanata Styling for almost a year, she’s still awestruck that Maz Kanata, celebrity stylist and overall fashion icon, talks to her on a regular basis. Her! Rey Jackson, practically a nobody, only a few years out of the Fashion Institute of Technology, just beginning to get her feet wet with styling. And now Maz wants her to...what?!

“Are you sure?” she blurts out.

Maz tips her head back and gives a hearty laugh. “I’m asking you, aren’t I?”

“Well, I just—” Rey helplessly gestures to the mess of magazine clippings sprawled across her desk. “I’ve never styled a client by myself before. I mainly work on themes. Scouting for designer samples. That sort of thing. Jess has way more hands-on experience. Kaydel too. She’s just worked with Cody Fern, so—”

“Are you trying to convince me _not_ to give you this assignment? That’s new.”

“I...no, no, that’s not—” Rey trails off, sheepish, but Maz just winks at her playfully.

“I’m only teasing, sunshine child. So are you up for it?”

Although she’s panicking already, Rey has enough sense to understand that Maz has just casually dropped a career advancing opportunity into her lap. She’d be an idiot to turn it down.

“Who’s the client?”

“Ben Solo.”

Rey recognizes the name immediately. She’d only just seen _Starkiller_ a few nights ago. She’d left the theater in a daze, intrigued (not to mention turned on) by Solo’s very morally grey character, Kylo Ren. And now she’s going to style the man himself. How is this her real life?

“He’s in that political drama everyone’s talking about. _Starkiller_. He’s been getting a lot of praise for it,” Maz says, handing her a file.

Rey opens it to find a headshot of Ben Solo staring back at her, his full lips downturned into a brooding scowl, his wealth of jet black hair artfully tousled. She turns to the next page and winces. He’d worn a t-shirt to the red carpet premiere of _Starkiller_?

Maz seems to share her sentiment, letting out a soft sigh. “From what I’ve been told, he’ll need quite a bit of fashion help. Poor man doesn’t have a stylish bone in his body. T-shirt and jeans on the red carpet? He’s worse than his father.”

His father being Han Solo, 70’s heartthrob of too many action films to count. His mother, Leia Organa, is also a household name, although her career has a wider span. She’d just won Best Actress a few years back, if Rey remembers correctly. To think that that tiny woman gave birth to this absolute behemoth of a man is...frightening to picture.

It’s even more frightening to picture meeting this man face-to-face, which, from the sound of things, may happen very soon.

Rey flips to another picture. Another red carpet event. He’s wearing a suit this time, at least, but it’s incredibly ill-fitting. To make matters worse, his hair is slicked back behind his large ears. The overall effect is...not good. He looks uncomfortable and angry, practically glaring at whatever unfortunate photographer dared to take the picture.

“Is he...okay? Nice?” Rey asks, trying to keep the concern in her voice to a minimum.

“Not sure. It’s been years since I’ve seen him; he was just a kid back then. But his parents are lovely, if that’s at all reassuring. Both a pleasure to work with. Leia’s an old friend, so is Han.”

“Right.” Rey worries at her bottom lip with her teeth, glancing up at Maz. “Should I call his people, then? Set up a meeting?”

Maz grins back, her brown eyes magnified behind her signature round glasses. “No need. Already have. He’s due for a consultation later today and I want you to run it.”

Rey sucks in a steadying breath and lets it out, slowly. “Right. Okay.”

“By yourself. I’ll be out for lunch.”

“Oh.” She swallows thickly, quickly carding through the rest of his file. One particular photo gives her pause. It’s a promo shot from what can only be a modern adaptation of _Hamlet_. The skull in his outstretched palm is a dead giveaway. The costume he’s wearing is yet again very casual: black hoodie, blacks jeans, Beats headphones around his neck. But there’s something different to his expression here, maybe because he’s acting. He doesn’t look so angry or uncomfortable. He looks in his element. Softer, more human, less intimidating.

Whatever it is, it gives her a much needed boost of confidence. Rey has never been a quitter, and she doesn’t intend on becoming one anytime soon.

“I’ll do it.”

\---

Rey’s first impression of Ben Solo is that he is every bit as intense as he is on screen.

And way, way taller than the pictures made him out to be.

Not just tall, either. ‘Big’ seems appropriate, but even that falls short of accurately describing his body type. His legs go on for miles, his feet are gigantic, and his shoulders are so wide-set that Rey’s arms ache just a few minutes in to measuring him.

He doesn’t talk at all during this process, which is extremely off-putting. She powers through as quick as she can, feeling his eyes on her the entire time.

She retreats to the relative safety of her chair to take notes, positioning herself ever-so-slightly in the direction of his irritated-looking manager. The man - Armitage Hux - isn’t much friendlier than Solo, but at least he’s kept up a steady conversation with her since the start of the meeting. He eyes her disinterestedly and Rey gives her best peppy smile back. He looks like he could do with some cheering up.

“So...as I was saying earlier, we work with a number of designers for menswear. Ms. Kanata has already been in touch with several, if Mr. Solo chooses to have a bespoke suit made, which—”

 _Which will mostly likely be the case_ , Rey doesn’t say. Just by looking at him, she’s highly doubtful that any of the designer suits they already have on loan will fit him properly. Most of them run smaller width-wise, as the men who model them are lean with little upper body muscle...something which Solo has in excess. Rey can see his pectorals straining against the fabric of his black t-shirt, and his biceps look strangled in the too-tight sleeves.

Yep. An excess of muscle is right. This guy is seriously, seriously jacked...and she realizes too late that she’s been staring at him for too long, not finishing her thought.

She jerks her eyes off his body immediately, clearing her throat.

His manager, God bless him, comes to her rescue. “What designers do you recommend, if he does choose to go the bespoke route?”

This she can answer with certainty.

Amilyn Holdo has made absolutely gorgeous suits for tall and muscular men like Dwayne Johnson and Jason Momoa before. Rey is fairly certain that, even within the limited time frame they have before the Golden Globes, as a team they’d all be able to come up with something appropriate for a man of Solo’s size.

“Holdo has a unique eye for color. Her Winter 2018-2019 menswear collection was beautiful. She used a lot of interesting jewel tones like burgundy, emerald, and plum, which I think would compliment Mr. Solo’s complexion and give his outfit an edge. Ms. Kanata has worked with her many times before, so I’m sure that she would be—”

“No.”

It’s the first thing she’s heard out of Ben Solo aside from his very brusque hello, and, to her embarrassment, she jumps a bit in her seat at the sound of his voice cutting her off.

Hux sighs deeply, rubbing at the ginger stubble covering his jaw. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a few days. Possibly a week. “What do you mean ‘no’? You haven’t even seen anything this designer has made.”

Solo steps off the slightly raised platform in the middle of Maz’s showroom where he’d stood for the measurements, taking up residence in one of the several other chairs lining the walls. He makes them look positively _tiny_. “The designer is fine. I don’t care who it is. But no colors.” He stares pointedly at Rey across the open space, his jaw working furiously. “You got that?”

“Of course. No color. We can for sure make that happen.” Rey jots down ‘NO COLOR’ in all caps in her notes and circles it three times. “I take it you’re a fan of black, then?”

This attempt at light humor falls spectacularly flat. Solo just keeps staring her down, like she’s just committed a grave offense by asking this of him.

“Black. Nothing else.”

Rey nods hurriedly, adding ‘BLACK’ underneath the ‘NO COLOR’. She underlines everything three times for good measure. “Right. Black. Got it.”

Solo doesn’t speak to her for the remainder of the consultation.

By the end of it, Rey is positive he hates her.

Which is just...lovely. Fantastic, even, as she’ll be working in close proximity with him for the foreseeable future.

At least this will be one hell of an addition to her CV. 


	2. Chapter 2

\---

“He’s handsome, no?”

Rey doesn’t even bother to look up from her computer. She knows exactly who Kaydel is talking about. It’s the same person who is currently with Amilyn Holdo in the back of the showroom, going through the first of many fittings for the (very black) suit that’s been decided upon.

“Hm. Also an asshole,” she replies.

“Really? That’s a shame. Then again all the interesting ones are.”

Is he really interesting, though? Physically...yes, Rey grudgingly admits. At first glance he’s got a weird looking face. When you really study him, though, he’s striking. And she’s been studying him a lot. All in the name of research, of course. Every photo that’s been taken, every interview he’s given.

This has helped her form the conclusion that he’s really quite dull, personality wise. Not interesting at all. He had a privileged upbringing in Beverly Hills, went to some absurdly expensive private school in New York as a teenager, then stuck around there for Juilliard. Pursued stage acting because it felt 'more honest' and only agreed to be in a film because _Starkiller’s_ screenplay was 'revolutionary'.

Rey scoffs. What a pretentious prick.

At least now she understands why he’s…like that. When you’re boring, you have to make up for it somehow.

She just wishes he’d make up for it in a different way. He’s an actor, surely he can pretend to be at least somewhat pleasant, funny, charming? He just chooses not to. Which makes her dislike him even more.

“Is he single, do you think?” Kaydel wonders aloud.

There was no history of a girlfriend or boyfriend that Rey could find online. But Kaydel doesn’t need to know what she’d been up to on Google at 3am. That’s between her and the FBI agent tracking her browsing history.

“If you like him so much, why don’t you help me style him? Please? I need all the backup I can get.”

Kaydel sighs. “I can’t. Constance Wu has my full attention and heart. We went shopping for hours yesterday and then she invited me over for dinner at her place to say thanks. She has a pet rabbit, Rey. It’s so cute.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Rey groans.

She has her own shopping trip planned for Solo after Holdo’s fitting today, but she knows for damn sure it’s not going to end in a nice ‘thank you’ dinner and a cute pet rabbit. 

More like a headache and a need for a stiff drink.

\---

They drive separately to Rodeo Drive, which in itself is a small mercy. This gives Rey time to collect her thoughts and develop a game plan. Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, and Bijan are first on the list, and she hopes the bulk of the shopping will be done after that. It’s Taco Tuesday at her favorite food truck and she could really use the comfort food right now.

But her hopes of getting her beloved tacos are destroyed only a few minutes into browsing the first store, when he gives her the Unrelenting Stare of Disapproval, as she’s taken to calling whenever he stares her down. 

“No.” 

Rey looks down at the black and dark grey plaid she’s picked out. It meets his color specifications; dark grey is _not_ a color. It comes in a size big enough to fit over his shoulders. It’s soft, multi-functional, and masculine. So what the hell is he objecting to?

Gritting her teeth, she asks, “May I ask why?” 

He has the audacity to shrug at her and not say anything else in response, wandering off to another part of the store. 

Silently fuming, Rey shoves the plaid back onto the clothing rack.

This happens again and again over the span of the next several hours. They leave Rodeo Drive with five items of clothing. 

Five.

Two pairs of jeans, one pair of slacks, a leather jacket, and a polo. 

All of them in black. 

By the time they widen their search to department stores, Rey is so angry she’s shaking, and no longer cares about staying within his precious black-as-his-soul color palette. She’s got an in-depth schedule of all the business casual events that Solo has between now and February and damn it, she _will_ find an outfit for every stupid luncheon or talk show appearance. Even if it means she has to fight him in the middle this Barneys.  

The sales associates may get an aneurysm or two, but so what?

Rey picks up a folded sweater off the nearest display table and shoves it into his giant dumb arms. “Here. A sweater. Crew neck. If it’s chilly you can layer it under the leather jacket we bought. Thoughts?”

He mumbles something under his breath that sounds like 'I don’t like green', but that doesn’t make any sense. The sweater is _red_.  

He is literally just fucking with her for the hell of it. 

And she’s had _enough_.

She grabs the sweater back from him, draping it over her arm. “You’re going to get this sweater.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Yes, you are. Or I’m going to tell Maz to drop your sorry ass off her list of clients.”

It’s immature of her to threaten him, but it does the job. He clenches his fists and moves his jaw, his eyes narrowed into slits. He’s pissed. _Good_. So is she.  

“We have a signed contract,” he snaps.

“Contracts get broken.” 

“It won’t reflect well on Kanata’s reputation to lose a client.”

“You won’t reflect well on anyone if you keep up this attitude.”

“This is extremely unprofessional.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” 

A muscle twitches under his left eye, but he doesn’t say anything more.

Instead he turns his back on her and just...walks away.

Rey’s tempted to shout something at him, or follow after him. But that’s what he probably wants. Groveling, an apology. Rey is done being a doormat. She’s tried to be patient and understanding, but it’s gotten her nowhere. For the first time in her career, she’s giving up.

Hands trembling, she reaches into her purse for her phone. She’s ashamed to break the news that they’ve just lost a high-profile client, but she’d rather Maz hear about it firsthand.

\---

Rey tries calling Maz several times, but her phone goes directly to voicemail. This usually means she’s on the phone with someone else. Rey sends up a prayer that the someone else isn’t who she thinks it is, because that would be just...yeah. Just the worst. It would be just like him, too, to tattle on her the first chance he gets.

She makes it back to the office in under forty-five minutes, a rarity for rush hour traffic. It’s late in the afternoon so everyone else has gone home, but Maz’s car is still in the parking garage alongside a sleek black one. There’s no mistaking whose car it is; Rey had glanced at it several times in her rearview mirror on the way to Rodeo earlier in the day.

 _Motherfucking shit_.

Heart in her throat, Rey takes the stairs two at a time and practically sprints across the workspace to Maz’s office, stopping just outside the door to catch her breath. She peeks inside, cursing to herself. Solo is sitting across from Maz, legs crossed, looking more at ease than she’s ever seen him look before. 

 _Probably because he knows that my ass is going to get handed to me_ , she seethes.  

Maz spots her and perks up in her seat, beckoning for her to come inside. “Rey! We were just talking about you. Come in, come in!”

Solo turns around in his chair, giving her yet another Unrelenting Stare of Disapproval. Rey has to exercise an incredible amount of restraint not to give him the finger, avoiding his gaze altogether as she sits down in the chair beside him. She feels like a naughty child due for a punishment. Except this isn’t just a punishment. This is her entire career that’s on the line, all because of one stuck up, stubborn, demanding, horrible, asshole of a—

“So, dear. I suppose congratulations are in order,” Maz grins.

Rey blinks in quick succession. What does she _mean_ _,_ congratulations? Is this some kind of sick joke? She knows that Maz can be sarcastic but it seems borderline cruel, to congratulate someone on their imminent dismissal.

Blinking back tears, Rey rushes to get her words out. “Maz - I - I want to explain myself. Please? Mr. Solo—”

“Is really satisfied with the work you’ve done so far, so I’d like to keep you on retainer as my personal stylist for the rest of the award season. Beyond that, too,” Solo interrupts her. “I was just filling Ms. Kanata in.”

Rey gapes back at him, at a complete loss for words. 

Maz claps in delight, seemingly oblivious to the straight up _lie_ that Solo has just given. “Such wonderful news, Rey! I’m so very proud of you. Mr. Hux is on his way over now to go over the particulars. You’ll still be welcome to work out of the office, of course, but from now until this new contract is renewed, Mr. Solo will be your one and only client.”

Rey digests all of this in silence, still unable to form words just yet. She looks over at Solo again and to her utter shock, he _smiles_ at her. It’s a tight-lipped, closed mouth sort of smile, but a smile nonetheless. It’s the most unsettling, confusing part of this entire thing, because he _never_ smiles.

Which begs the question: what sort of fucked up, hellish alternate universe has she just stumbled into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, lovely readers! Thank you for the amazing response to the first chapter. 
> 
> Shoutout to KBB for her beta work and cheerleading.


	3. Chapter 3

\---

You know that saying, “Between a rock and a hard place?”

Rey used to think it applied to situations she ran into at school like ‘I’m so sleep deprived I’m giggling at nothing, but I really need to finish this project for finals’ or ‘I have $4 in my bank account and I don’t know whether to spend it on food or transportation’. 

In hindsight, those seem so trivial. 

Because this...this is the biggest case of Rock vs. Hard Place she’s ever experienced in her life.

The rock is her forfeiting her job security by telling Maz that Ben Solo is pretty much the worst, effectively breaking her contract with him. The hard place is staying silent to keep the peace, while serving as Solo’s indentured servant-slash-stylist. 

Okay, maybe ‘indentured servant’ is taking it too far.

The point is, it’s a power play. Maybe even blackmail? She isn’t entirely sure what does and does not count as blackmail these days. He’d only lied to her boss and smiled at her afterwards. Not a lot to go on. But it had _felt_ threatening. Threatening enough that she’d gone home that night and Googled lawyers that she definitely can’t afford.

Whatever the case and whatever it’s called, Solo has done her dirty, no doubt about it. He’d counted on her keeping her mouth shut in front of Maz and, like an idiot, Rey had done exactly that, easily falling into the trap he’d set.

Now she’s stuck with him. No way out until he says so or she compromises her job. The job that she’s worked so, so hard to get. The job that feels like her baby. The job that she’s so passionate about, she doesn’t know what her life would look or feel like without it. 

When she thinks of the problem in that way, there’s really only one choice she can live with. 

She’s going to be Ben Solo’s stylist for the foreseeable future, and it is really, really going to suck.

\---

  _2 weeks until the Golden Globes_  

Rey pulls into a parallel spot just outside Tico Salon and sees that Solo is waiting for her at the entrance, arms crossed, scowling under the California sun. Perfect.

She takes her sweet time getting out of her car. Checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Gathering her planner and phone into her purse. Picking imaginary lint off her skirt. By the time she greets him on the curb with an airy, fake-as-hell smile, his jaw is working a mile a minute. 

“You’re late.”

“Only by ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes is still late.”

“Traffic. Couldn’t be helped,” Rey lies. There hadn’t been a lot of it, but she’d decided to stop and treat herself to an eggnog latte. ‘Tis the fucking season. She takes a good, long sip of it, locking eyes with him as she does.

The jaw clenching gives way to that very telling left eye muscle twitch of his. This fills Rey with a perverse sort of pleasure, but she bottles it up to savor later. They’re here for a hair appointment and she’s already kept too-good-for-this-world, incredibly talented Rose Tico waiting for too long.  

She ducks around his massive frame and enters the salon, not bothering to hold the door open for him. 

Rose and Paige Tico greet them with the sort of warmth, grace, and humility that Rey has come to expect from the pair. Solo gives back nothing in return aside from his usual terse ‘hello’. It’s embarrassing, to say the least, to see how their sunny smiles falter when they get a good look at the rain cloud that’s just walked in, darkening their salon with his gloom. 

But the Ticos are professionals, very much used to difficult and temperamental clients. They get to business immediately, treating him no different than they would anyone else. Rey can sense their tension, though. It’s the same tension she’d felt when first meeting Ben Solo. Waiting for him to blow up, to do something more explosive than stare at you or give you one-word answers.

“He’s a bit intense, isn’t he?” Rose whispers to her, once Paige has taken Mr. Brooding to the back for an almond milk, honey, and rosehip hair mask. Not that he needs it. Rey had watched Rose trim his overgrown locks, slightly in awe of how shiny and healthy his hair looked. Why is it that bad people always have really good hair? It doesn’t seem fair. 

“Intense is putting it lightly, Rose,” Rey groans.

“He didn’t say anything to me when I was cutting his hair. I tried small talk but he just...didn’t respond. ” 

“Yeah, he does that.”

“Maybe he’s shy?”

Ben Solo? Shy? Just last night Rey had watched a bootleg, illegally uploaded performance of one of his stage performances. A cutthroat corporate world retelling of _Macbeth_ this time. The dude has a thing for weird adaptations of Shakespeare. Also for taking his shirt off. He’d spent the better part of the play wearing nothing but a pair of black slacks, his bare chest covered in fake blood. One scene, for no apparent reason, he’d even taken it a step further, shucking everything off but his skintight black briefs.

Yeah. Definitely not shy. A man of his...proportions has no reason to be. 

Rey swallows, willing her brain to stop picturing her nemesis in his underwear. 

“Shy or not, he’s lucky you’re an angel and didn’t purposely give him a bad haircut,” she says. 

“I would never!” Rose gasps, aghast. She leans closer and mutters, “Why, do you need me to give him one?”

Rey laughs. “That remains to be seen. I do need help getting him ready for the Golden Globes, though. Please say you aren’t already booked that day?” 

“I have several house calls but I could always add him to the list if given the right...motivation.”

“Name it.” 

“Is that cute makeup artist friend of yours going to be there? The buff one?” 

“Finn? Probably. Depends on whether Solo will stoop so low as to allow makeup to be applied to his face when he’s not acting.” 

“Oh, he will. If he’s game for one of Paige’s hair masks, he’ll be okay with a bit of concealer. Guys love to be pampered, they just won’t admit it.” 

“If that’s the case, then yes, Finn will most likely be there.” 

Beaming, Rose shakes Rey’s hand. “Count me in.” 

\---

  _1 week until the Golden Globes_  

Rey feels surprisingly okay stress-wise, considering the circumstances. A lot of that has to do with having an actual team to deal with Solo now. Rose for hair, Finn for makeup, and Holdo for the suit details. Solo’s new PA Mitaka helps to keep things running smoothly, too, which is very much appreciated today. It’s the trial run for the Golden Globes look and Rey has to make sure everything comes together as it should. 

Or, more accurately, as Solo thinks it should.

If he doesn’t like the final product, there will be a lot of last minute adjustments this upcoming week. Rey can handle that, though. Just like she’s handled every other stupid obstacle Solo has thrown her way. Re-organizing his closet because his newly acquired clothes ‘messed it up’. Scrambling to find a different shoe brand in his size because he hadn’t liked the soles of the Louboutin oxfords. Putting together his last minute outfit change for _The Hollywood Reporter_ ’s Actor Roundtable.

Rey sighs. That last one in particular had been hell, but it had paid off; he’d appeared relaxed when the cameras were on him, and looked genuinely interested in what the other actors were saying. She can’t take all the credit for his mood that day, though; Hugh Jackman could charm a statue, and hard ass Ben Solo is pretty damn close to one.

He doesn’t seem in a terrible mood today, either. His sour facial expressions are a near constant thing, but he hasn’t objected once. Not to Rey re-doing the Full Windsor knot of his tie, or to Rose using copious amounts of hairspray, or even to Finn trimming a few stray nose hairs in front of everyone.

Rey just hopes his less-than-awful mood stays that way when he gets a full look at himself in the mirror.

She waits, holding her breath, as he steps onto the platform in Maz’s showroom. He looks a lot different than his first consultation weeks ago; no t-shirts or jeans in sight. Instead, a two-piece suit fit to perfection. Shiny leather Dolce & Gabbana oxfords. A crisp dress shirt underneath the dinner jacket, and a sleek satin tie to match the satin lapels of the suit. 

Everything in unforgiving black. 

 _Undertaker chic_ , Holdo has taken to calling his look. Faced with the full effect, Rey finds that a very apt description. It definitely looks like a funeral suit. But it’s also very sexy, she must admit. With his dark hair and pale skin complementing his clothing, he looks otherworldly. _Underwordly_. Hades in human form with an attitude to match.  

“Well?” Rey asks impatiently, when the seconds tick by and he’s still silent.

His eyes meet hers in the mirror. She suddenly feels exposed, like she’s the one on full display instead of him. 

“It’s good,” he says at last, holding her gaze. 

And then a quiet, almost imperceptible: 

“Thank you.”

\---

  _1 day until the Golden Globes_

The night before the awards, Rey meets Solo at his downtown apartment for a last minute try-on. He looks like he’s in a rare good mood when he answers the door for her. Eyes soft, mouth relaxed. But that trademark scowl appears as he takes in her appearance, his eyes lingering on her...hair?

Rey tucks a piece of it behind her ear, frowning as he tracks the movement. She hasn’t brushed it since this morning, but does it really look that bad? 

“Hey?”

He doesn’t say anything back, just takes the garment bag and shoes from her, disappearing up the stairs to his lofted bedroom to change. 

Rey sighs wearily. She had thought, after the miraculous ‘thank you’ she’d received from him last week, they’d reached somewhat of an understanding.

Looks like she’d been wrong about that. Color her surprised.

Left with nothing to do but wait, Rey ventures into the open industrial space. She’s been here once before to rearrange Solo’s closet, but she’s still struck by how _bare_ it is. She knows he only rents this place whenever he’s in LA and probably has a trust-funded Brooklyn brownstone waiting for him back in New York, but still. Would it hurt to add some greenery to the window ledge? A picture frame or two to the whitewashed brick walls? Food in the kitchen cabinets? Any evidence that someone actually _lives_ here?  

It must be lonely, she thinks. Even for someone who’s as much of a loner as him. 

Troubled by that thought, Rey takes a seat at the kitchen table, listening to the sound of him rustling around upstairs.

He comes back down eventually, looking nearly red carpet ready. His tie isn't done, his hair is in his eyes, and the laces of his shoes are a bit clumsily tied but all-in-all, he’s done a good job of putting himself together. A far cry from just a few short weeks ago.

Rey goes to him, dropping to her knees on the concrete floor to take care of his shoes. “You nervous for tomorrow?” she asks, more for her benefit than his. 

He doesn’t respond at first. When he does, it’s not in the way she expects.

“Get off your knees,” he says, voice pitched impossibly low. 

Rey stops lacing his shoes at that, glancing up at him. Her stomach flips at the raw fury in his eyes. What the everloving _hell_?

“I’m - I’m nearly done,” she protests, pulling his shoestrings taut. “Just hold still.”

He does the opposite, pulling his feet out of her grasp. “Get. Up.”

“ _What_ is your problem tonight?!” 

“You’re my problem,” he snaps.

Rey glares up at him, hands on her hips. “Listen here. I’m exhausted. I’m overworked. And I’ve had it up to _here_ with your garbage self. Frankly, I’m sick of you. I’m trying to do my _job_. This is what I do! I’m fixing your fucking laces, so the very least you can do is let me do this in peace. But you can’t even do that, can you? It’s like you live to make my life harder! To torture me! To—” 

He grabs her by her upper arms, pulling her to her feet. “You don’t know _anything_ about torture.” 

Rey shoves him away from her, _hard_ , and gives him another push just because. It doesn’t really do that much; he’s as solid as a brick wall, but she doesn’t care. She’s so angry she’s seeing _red_. “What are you on about? Yes, I do know! You make my life hell. Daily!”

“Not as much as you do mine.”

Rey splutters in disbelief. “Are you - are you serious? Are you actually serious right now? I try to _help_ you on a daily basis, you utter twat!” She knows she’s growing hysterical, but she can’t help it. He’s gone way too far this time, and she can’t help but scream at the injustice of it all. “What could I have possibly done to you that’s worse than what you’ve done to me? Really, tell me! I’m all fucking ears, prick!”

Breathing heavily, he lifts a finger and points it at her hair again, where he’d been staring before.

“That. That’s worse,” he hisses. “Having to see _that_ _,_ with you on your knees, looking up at me.” 

Rey’s ire dims, only to be replaced by utter confusion. “What? The fuck? My hair?” 

He steps closer to her, chest heaving. “No. Not your hair. The _lovebite_. On your neck. Who gave you that?” he snarls. “Tell me!”

Rey’s hand reaches up to cup the side of her neck, feeling the tender, raised skin. “That’s - no! I _burnt_ myself this morning. On my straightener. It’s a burn. Not a - not a lovebite.”

He reaches out to touch it himself, like he doesn’t believe her. Rey winces, pushing at him again to no avail. He doesn’t budge, just grabs her by the wrists, keeping her in place.

And then—

And then he does the unthinkable, and _kisses_ her.


	4. Chapter 4

\---

Rey should slap him.

Knee him.

Punch his stupid face.

She doesn’t do any of that.

No.

When his lips touch hers, in a kiss so intense it’s sure to make her bruise, she _moans_.

And kisses him back.

Because he is a fantastic kisser.

The best, in fact. 

That’s not the only thing he’s good at, either.

His lips gradually trail down to her neck where her burn is. He _licks_ her there, right over the raw, tender skin, and blows on it after. Soothing it. Taking care of her.

The pleasure-pain of it feels so good she actually goes weak in the knees, like she’s a damsel in some 1920’s silent movie. 

But he just lifts her up into his hard-as-granite arms, pulling insistently on her legs so they wrap around his waist. Then his impossibly large hand cups the back of her neck, and he kisses her  _harder_ _._

Oh fuck. Oh _fuck_ _._ The room is spinning.

No, no it’s not. He’s just spun her around and is taking her somewhere - where?

A cool, hard surface touches the backs of her legs and Rey gasps. He uses that to his advantage, slipping his tongue past her lips to deepen the kiss to a full-on make out. 

Wait a second. 

Make out? 

She is _making out_ with Ben Solo.

Her client, Ben Solo.

Sworn enemy, Unrelenting Stare of Disapproval owner, utter ASS of an actor Ben Solo. 

What is wrong with her? She can’t be making out with _him_! 

She needs to stop!

NOW!

Rey acts on instinct and bites down on his bottom lip. 

“Ow! Fucker!” he yells.

Seizing her chance, Rey scrambles off the marbled kitchen island where he’d set her down and makes a run for it. 

This never, never happened. She refuses to accept that he just had his tongue in her mouth, that he licked her neck, that her legs were wrapped around his body. She cannot ever look him in the eyes again. _Ever_. 

Fuuuck no. Absolutely not. 

She’s almost to the front door when she feels his hands on her hips, picking her up again like she’s weightless.

“Where the _fuck_ do you think you’re going?”

Rey thrashes in his hold. “Put me down, you evil shit!”

“Not until you tell me where the hell you're running off to after biting my lip in half, you fucking _cocktease_.” 

 _That_ certainly gets her attention.

“WHAT did you just call me?”

“You heard me.”

Oh, that does it.

She elbows him in the side, hard as she can, and he finally drops her. Rey turns to face him, back against the door. She’s so out of breath she feels like she’s run a marathon, but she’s able to bite out,

“You are seriously one fucked up individual.” 

He actually _laughs_ _._

“Yeah, I’m fucked up. Because you’re under my _fucking_ skin. From the very first time I met you, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Your perfect body, your smile, your accent—” He breaks off, like it’s physically painful to say the rest.  

“What?” she says, distantly. The drumming in her ears is so loud, it doesn’t even feel or sound like her own voice. 

“I said,” He slowly advances on her, predatorily. “That you’re _under my fucking skin_.” 

His tongue swipes at his bloody bottom lip. Rey feels a secret thrill travel up her spine at the sight. She did that. She bit Ben Solo. He’s going to have a mark because of _her_.

“What do you have to say to that?” he asks. He’s so close to her now she can feel his body heat. So close she could reach out and touch that bloody lip herself.

She resists, mustering up even more bravado from who-knows-where to clap back with:

“Good.” 

“Good?” 

She nods, her breath hitching when he braces his arm above her head, leaning in. “About time someone put you in your place.”

That doesn’t phase him in the slightest. He just shakes his head slowly, his voice hushed. “Fuck, I _love_ it when you talk to me like that.”

Rey blinks. Oh? _Oh_. He _enjoys_ it when she talks down to him? What a freaking weirdo.

...And yet, for reasons she does not yet fully comprehend or even _want_ to comprehend, she enjoys it, too. So she keeps doing it.

“You love it? Me treating you like the snake that you really are?”

He brushes her hair from her face. “If I’m the snake, who does that make you?” 

She bats his hand away. “Someone who isn’t afraid to stomp on you.”

“Funny. I was going to say Eve.”

God, he’s so dramatic. And she’s kind of living for it. This is the most she’s heard out of him. Ever. She knows she should disengage. This way surely leads to ruin. But this back-and-forth between them is like scratching at a poison ivy rash. Will probably make things worse in the long run, but feels so fucking good in the moment. 

“I’d only be Eve if you had some sort of forbidden fruit to offer me, which you don’t.”

His eyes travel down her body, sizing her up, then focus back on her face. “I think I do.”

“You don’t.” 

He touches her burn again, softly. “Want to find out?”

She tries so hard not to lean into his touch. “No.”

“Liar.”

With that, he’s kissing her again.

It’s even better than the last time. She doesn’t know how that’s even possible, but it is. He’s kissing her with his entire body, pressing himself against her, working loose weeks’ worth of pent up frustration.

She can’t find it within herself to stop it.

What’s more, she doesn’t want to, this time.

Instead she sucks his plump bottom lip into her mouth, tasting the coppery salt of his blood on her tongue.

That drives him absolutely _wild_. With a growl low in his throat, he picks her up yet again, bracing her back against the door.

“Yes, baby, _yes_. Kiss me back. I’ve thought about doing this to you, fuck, I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”

“Thought about this?” she rasps against his mouth. Unbidden, her mind supplies her with everything else he might have thought about. But she doesn’t have to wonder about might haves, not when he’s right here. She can just ask him. “What else? Tell me.”

“I’ve thought about hiking up your prim little skirt and having my way with you.”

Her skin catches fire at that admission. She wraps her arms around him, desperately clinging to him. Her flats, which have put up a valiant fight considering how much she’s moved about, finally fall off her feet when she wraps her legs around him, too.

“What else?”

He shifts her weight in his arms so he has one hand free. He snakes it between their bodies, bunching up her skirt to her hips, then cups her cunt in the palm of his hand.

“Fuck. You’re soaking wet for me.”

She bears down, grinding against his hand. “What. Else?”

He swears something under his breath, slapping her cunt. Not hard enough to really hurt, but enough to make her cling to him even tighter. “So damn bossy.”

“Shut up.”

“How can I, when you’re wearing these flirty little lace panties?” He pulls at the fabric, making it bunch between her pussy lips. The friction that gives to her clit is near unbearable. Her hips jerk against him, seeking more.

“Don’t say that word. I hate that word so much. They’re underwear—”

He cuts her off with another kiss, pushing the crotch of her underwear to the side so she’s completely bare to him. Then he finally, _finally_ applies direct pressure to her clit with his beautiful fingers. He greedily swallows her moans, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the sensitive bundle of nerves until she’s taut as a bowstring.

“I’m gonna fill up your pretty cunt with your _panties_ pushed to the side.”

“Fuck you!” Rey gasps. She’d meant it to have more bite, not so breathlessly spoken, but holy shit, his _fingers_. He slips his pointer and middle finger inside her pussy, stretching her open, crooking them just-so to brush against the front wall of her.

Rey’s eyes roll back. She feels like she’s going to pass out.

“Look at you,” he marvels. “Think you can come on my fingers, sweetness? Or would you rather it be on my cock?”

She nearly comes just from him talking like that, but through the haze, she remembers how big he’d looked in that production of _Macbeth_. Straining against his underwear. She wants that in her. Needs _him_ in her. Desperately.

“Please,” she whispers.

“Please what?”

“Please...do that.”

“Do what?”

“The second one!” She can feel her blush spreading, fanning from her cheeks down to her neck and chest.

He notices too. His smile is so smug she’s tempted to smack it right off his face but he roughly thrusts his fingers inside her before she can, making her cry out.

“You act all tough but get flustered by dirty talk? Adorable. Such a proper British princess.”

“Piss off.”

“No chance. I’m gonna fuck you against this door until you can’t walk straight.”

He pulls his fingers from her, bringing them up to his mouth to suck them clean. It’s so casually done yet so gloriously filthy that Rey’s cunt throbs, aching at the loss of anything inside it.

“Fuck. You taste as good as I thought you would. Hold on, baby. _Stay here_ _._ Don’t you dare move or leave or I swear, I’ll comb the entire city looking for you. I just need a condom.” He moves to set her down but she clamps her legs around him tighter, keeping him flush against her.

“No!”

“What?”

“I’m clean and on the pill. You don’t need one. Just...do it. Like this. Don’t make me wait,” she pleads.

His eyes grow impossibly dark and he grinds himself against her sex, making her pant. “Jesus fuck. Do you have any idea what hearing you say that does? You’re going to be the death of me.”

Impatient, at her wit’s end, Rey pulls on his undone tie, urging him to kiss her again. “Then fuck me. _Now_ _._ Before I change my mind.”

She’s not going to change her mind, no way in hell, but those words turn him into a man possessed, which is exactly what she wanted. He makes quick work of his pants, unbuttoning and shoving them down his legs along with his boxers. He grabs her ass and actually _rips_ her underwear this time, he’s so rough with pushing them to the side. But Rey doesn’t have the time to protest, or even the chance to fully get a look at his cock, before he’s pressing up against her.

It hurts at first. Fuck, it does. Even with how ridiculously wet she is, he’s way too long and way too thick for a comfortable fit. With every inch deeper he goes, Rey’s breath is forcibly knocked out of her until there’s nothing left and she’s gasping, trembling in his arms.

He locks eyes with her and it’s too much, she can’t look at him while he’s fully inside her, claiming her in the most primitive way. She buries her face in his shoulder, inhaling the clean, fresh scent of him.

But he doesn’t even let her have that.

“No. You’re going to look at me while I fuck you, Rey. I want to remember the look on your face when I make you come on my cock.”

“Oh, God,” she whimpers. It’s the first time she’s heard him say her name out loud and the effect it has on her is unreal.

“Look at me. Now.”

He pulls her face back up to his. The raw desire she sees there is overwhelming but she has nowhere to go now, nowhere to hide. Just like he wants.

“You grip me so good, baby. I can feel your tight little cunt quivering around my cock. You were made for me.”

“Oh, _God_ ,” she says again, more frantic this time, as he finally starts to move. He withdraws a few inches then presses back in deep, eyes never leaving hers.

“Too much for you, sweetness? Never been fucked like this before?”

She really, really hasn’t. Her limited experiences have been unsatisfying fumbles in the dark. Nothing like this. No one else has expected, _demanded_ her full attention like this. And he knows it. He tightens his grip on her ass, moving her like he wants, quickening his strokes, making her cry out every time he slides back in to the hilt.

“I don’t want you to come on anyone else’s cock but mine for the rest of your goddamn life. Do you understand? You’re _mine_. Your cunt is mine. You can style other men, style other women, but only I get to touch you back.”

He’s being completely serious and she’s too beyond herself to care how possessive he’s being, how uncompromising. Maybe she even _likes_ it.

“Say yes,” he urges, reaching between them to once again find her clit, rubbing it in fast, circular motions.

“Yes,” she chokes, holding onto him for dear life.

“Say ‘yes, Ben’.”

“Yes, Ben!”

No longer ‘Solo’. Somewhere between their first kiss and him fucking her like crazy he’s become Ben to her. This newfound understanding is so intimate to her, so much, that she can feel herself fast approaching the edge.

Ben must feel it, too.

“Don’t hold back, baby. I want to feel you clench around me when you get there.”

“God, Ben!”

“Do it. Come on my cock.”

He’s shaking along with her, his movements erratic now, but he’s able to hit that perfect spot within her on every thrust. One particularly brutal shove of his hips finally sends her over the edge, shouting his name. He fucks her through each tremor but he’s not far behind her; he grits his teeth, his wild eyes still entirely focused on hers.

“I’m gonna fill your pretty little pussy up with my cum. Make you _messy_ with it. Mark you as mine,” he snarls. “FUCK!”

With one final snap of his hips, he bottoms out within her, spilling himself inside. His lips find hers again, insistent and desperate.

As both of them struggle to catch their breaths, he sets her back down, slowly and gently. He’s held her throughout everything, his strength never wavering, but Rey can’t say the same. Her legs have been reduced to actual jelly, they’re so wobbly. Too weak to keep herself upright she leans against his chest, burying her face in the soft wool of his suit.

Then the realization hits her like a freight train.

His _suit_ _._

He’s just fucked her in a bespoke suit worth _thousands_ of dollars.

The same suit he’s supposed to wear tomorrow to the _Golden fucking Globes_.

She glances down to assess the damage, swallowing thickly. His pants are still pooled about his ankles and his jacket’s been unbuttoned sometime during the sex, but there are definite wet spots on his dress shirt.

Wet spots from her, most likely.

Rey’s ruined a one-of-a-kind suit with her vagina. Fuck her life.

“I - I need to go and dry clean the suit. Immediately,” she tells him, fixing her own clothing as best as she can. She can feel his cum slowly pooling in her underwear, making it stick to her skin. He _really_ wasn’t kidding about making a mess.

Ben does the same as her, bending down to pull his pants back up, not bothering to button them. “Not immediately, you don’t.”

“But—”

Before she can protest any further he slings her over his shoulder, her ass in the air. He gives it a hard smack and she yelps.

“Ow! Ben! I’m serious!”

“You’re not going anywhere.” He heads towards the stairs leading up to the loft, stopping only to spank her harder when she tries to wriggle free. “Except to my bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers, 
> 
> I'm so very humbled by the amazing reception this fic has gotten. I cherish every one of your comments. Love you all!


	5. Chapter 5

\---

The second time Ben brings Rey to orgasm, he holds her against him in bed, makes her look at herself in the full-length mirror across the room, and fingers her until she makes a mess of his bedsheets.

The third time, he makes her sit on his face. Much like when he kisses her, he doesn’t just use his mouth to do the job; every part of him is involved. His nose rubbing against her clit while he licks her, his strong arms splaying her legs apart so he can take his fill, his stubble tickling the skin of her inner thighs. A complete sensory overload.

The fourth time, he binds her wrists together with his suit’s tie and pounds her from the back. He sends her over the edge by spanking her ass repeatedly, making her squeeze around his cock each time.

She’s convinced that after the fifth time, he’s fucked her into another dimension where time ceases to exist. That’s the only explanation for why it’s nearly 5am in the morning and she still hasn’t slept or taken his suit to the cleaners.

But she has to draw the line somewhere. She _has_ to. When she feels his hands traveling down her thoroughly-fucked body yet again, she pushes him away with a groan. 

“Don’t you ever get tired?”

“Not of you.”

She tucks away the warm, happy feeling those words evoke and forces herself to get out of his bed. Her joints crack when she does and _fuck_ , she’s sore in places she didn’t even know she could be sore, but she’s alive. For the most part.

She moves about his bedroom to pick up all the pieces of his suit first, then her own clothing. Her bra’s flung over the lamp in the corner, her skirt is halfway down the stairs and her blouse is crumpled up on the floor. All are utterly wrinkled but still wearable. She can’t say the same for a certain cum stained pair of lace hipsters, wherever they are.

“Have you seen my underwear?”

“No.” He’s still in bed, watching her, a small smile on his face.

Something in that look makes her suspect that he _does_ know where they are, he’s just not saying.

“Well, if you find them, can you let me know? Mitaka will be here at nine, Finn and Rose around eleven with me. I’d really like to avoid any of them coming across a pair of panties today.”

He sits up in bed, grinning. “You said—”

She grimaces. “I know what I said. Shut it.”

“So bossy this morning. Where are you going?”

“The dry cleaners. I’ve told you this.”

He sighs. “Do you really have to dry clean the suit?”

“Yes!”

He eyes it critically where she’s hung it on his closet door. “It doesn’t look dirty, just wrinkled.”

“Ben, I got my - my _stuff_ on it.”

“Your ‘stuff’? What stuff?”

He knows exactly what stuff. He just wants to hear her say it because he’s a menace and likes to see her squirm.

“Fuck you.”

He stretches, looking way too handsome for his own good. “Again? Alright, come over here.”

“Not what I meant.” She gathers her absolute rat’s nest of hair into a semblance of a bun and attempts to smooth down her flyaways using his mirror. The same mirror where she’d watched a reflection of herself become a human geyser thanks to Ben and his freakishly talented fingers.

No doubt remembering the same thing, he gets out of bed and comes up behind her, locking his arms around her. He’s still completely naked and she can feel his hardening cock digging into her backside. One of his hands starts to fondle her breast, tweaking her nipple through her clothing.

Rey closes her eyes and huffs out a breath. “Ben.”

“Rey?”

She opens her eyes again. “I have to go.”

In the mirror, she watches as his hand on her breast descends to her stomach, to her hip, then disappears under the waistband of her skirt.

“Do you really, though?” he murmurs, his voice sinfully deep.

She loses focus the second he finds her clit again. _Damn him_. “...W-what?”

“Do you really have to go?”

He mouths at her neck, on the opposite side of where her burn is. If he’s not careful, she’s going to have a true lovebite. The thing that started all of this.

She gulps, her hands seeking purchase against the mirror as he starts to touch her in earnest. “I—”

“Hm?”

“I— Oh my _God_ , keep doing that.”

He kisses her shoulder, coaxing her legs apart with his own. “Anything for you, sweetness.”

\---

Plutt’s Cleaners is one of the best kept secrets in LA.

It’s a hole in the wall and looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the 90’s, but appearances are very deceiving. Unkar’s great at what he does, his rates are usually reasonable, he’s open 24 hours, and his turnaround time is negotiable - especially when you bribe him. And Rey knows exactly what to bribe him with today.

She cuts to the chase, handing him a bottle of Grey Goose the moment she walks in. “I know it’s early but I need your help.”

He eyes the vodka appreciatively. “Where’d you get this? The ABC store around the block isn’t open till seven.”

“I have my ways.”

It had been one of the several unopened alcohol bottles that Ben had in his kitchen. Gifts from studio execs and the like, he’d explained. He didn’t bat an eye when she took the most expensive brand and shoved it in her purse before she left. Despite his intensity, she’s learning that there are some things he just doesn’t give a shit about, and it’s more endearing than she wants to admit.

Plutt cracks open the bottle seal and takes a sip. “Good stuff. Alright, what do you want?”

Rey hefts the garment bag off her shoulder and onto the counter, unzipping it quickly. “I need this dry cleaned and wrinkle free by ten this morning.”

“I can steam it for wrinkles but dry cleaning an entire suit in four hours? You’re joking. This looks like high quality wool. Can’t rush cleaning it.”

Rey grits her teeth in frustration. “What about the shirt? Can you at least clean that?”

Plutt leans in for a closer look. “What’s wrong with it? Don’t see any stains. Just smells a bit...musky.” He looks up at her again, frowning. “Whose suit is this?”

She wills herself not to wince. Yeah, it’s musky alright. That’s what happens when a six-foot-three sex demon fucks you against a door and makes you cum all over his suit. Plutt doesn’t need to know that, though. _No one_ needs to know that. She’d very much like to take the unfortunate accident with the suit to her grave.

“Can you clean it?” she repeats, evading his question.

“I’ll have to charge you extra up front if you need it by ten.”

“Even with the vodka?”

“Yep.”

Rey sighs, passing him her company credit card. Some things are worth the expense, and getting rid of all evidence that she’s marked a bespoke suit with her pussy is one of them

\---

With the suit taken care of, Rey stops by her apartment to get herself in presentable condition again. She takes off her clothes one-by-one and, to her embarrassment, smells each item, because they all smell like Ben.

Her hair does too.

Her whole body, actually.

It’s...nice. To smell like the person you slept with. She can see the appeal it has for him. She could also get used to this and quickly. Which is...kind of a problem. A _lot_ of a problem. Ben Solo is still, first and foremost, her client. She needs to start acting like it even if their professional relationship is not-so-professional anymore. Even if he’d given her the best sex of her life. Even if he’d walked her out to her car early this morning in the dark, and kissed her oh-so-sweetly on the lips to say goodbye.

Even if...

“Get it together,” she mutters, throwing all the evidence of last night into her dirty clothes hamper.

\---

“Do you guys think it smells like sex in here?” Finn asks.

Rose actually _sniffs_ the air like a bloodhound before nodding. “Guess he had a visitor last night.”

Rey nearly chokes on her coffee. They’re all in Ben’s kitchen setting up while he’s taking a shower and Mitaka is out grabbing lunch for everyone, so at least there’s that, but _still_. Finn and Rose are looking at her, expecting a response. As far as they know she hates Ben’s guts, so she has to act like it so as not to arouse suspicion.

“Ugh. So gross,” she manages.

But hiding what happened last night only gets worse as the day progresses.

Like when Rose expresses worry that Rey is limping, when she hadn’t even noticed she had been.

“Worked out too hard, I guess,” she explains.

It’s not a complete lie. She definitely hasn’t burned as many calories in recent memory as she did last night.

“I hate when that happens! It’s like your body is punishing you for being healthy!” Rose winces in sympathy, combing the hair of the very person responsible for Rey not walking straight. He just eyes her impassively as he takes a sip of his stupid Fiji water. The picture of innocence when she knows he is anything but.

 _Bastard_.

It happens again when Finn does Ben’s makeup.

“Ow, what happened here? I’ll have to color correct it a bit. Looks painful,” Finn remarks, lightly touching the bruised, blood red skin of Ben’s bottom lip.

“Yes. Very painful,” is the only response Ben gives, once again looking right at her.

Praying for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, Rey suddenly becomes _very_ interested in checking her email on her phone.

The worst, though, the _worst_ is once Rey is alone with Ben and Mitaka for the final preparations. Ben’s ride is due to arrive in just ten minutes when he calls her upstairs where he’d gone to change.

“Miss Jackson?”

“Yes?” she looks up towards the loft, trying to place where he’s at.

“A moment, please. I need you to re-do my tie.”

“Could you come down here so I can do it?”

A beat of silence, then:

“No.”

She doesn’t know what she expected, honestly.

“Right. I’ve been summoned,” she sighs, smiling ruefully at Mitaka. He gives her a sympathetic grimace in return, his attention returning to his phone.

She climbs the stairs, slowly, because her body still fucking hurts. She tries very hard not to think about last night when Ben had carried her up to the loft, intent on ravishing her. But the memories come flooding back when his bed comes into view. Still unmade, because of course it is.

Where the hell is he, though?

Not in his walk-in closet where she assumed he would be, which only leaves one area of the loft unchecked: the bathroom. Rey approaches it hesitantly and knocks twice. “Hey?”

It all happens in an instant.

He opens the door, clamps his hand over her mouth, and pulls her inside the bathroom, quietly shutting the door back behind him.

Then he’s _everywhere_. One hand in her hair, one hand squeezing her ass, lips kissing along her neck, chest pressed against hers.

“What are you _doing_?” Rey hisses, cursing herself for leaning into his touch again.

“You’re driving me fucking _crazy_ ,” he rasps. “Now that I know what you feel like, taste like, smell like, I can’t get enough. I want you so bad. Get on the counter. I need to taste your cunt again.” He lifts her up, effortlessly, placing her on the edge of the bathroom sink.

He has her underwear halfway down her legs before she can muster enough sense to realize the sheer absurdity and riskiness of their current situation.

“Ben!” she pulls up her clothes again, jumping off the counter. “We can’t do this. We seriously can’t. You have to leave soon and Mitaka is _right_ downstairs, you absolute madman.”

He growls at her like a damn animal but relents, squeezing her against him again. “I am. I am a madman. I can’t help it. It still smells like you.”

“What?”

“My suit.”

She sniffs it. Nothing overt, but there’s a subtle hint of vanilla. At least it’s her perfume and not something else. “Gross.”

“Not gross. Sexy. You’re so sexy. I want to strip you all over again and make a mess.”

She rolls her eyes, slapping away his insistent hands. “Yeah, well, not going to happen. You have an award show to get to and you are _not_ going to mess up anything.”

“What about after?”

“After? Ben—”

“Say yes and I’ll make you come twice as many times as last night.”

Rey can feel herself blushing scarlet. “How is that even possible—”

“I’m up for a challenge. I want my jaw to permanently ache when I’m done with you.”

Good GOD.

Breathe, she needs to breathe.

“Ben. Get downstairs. _Now_.”

“I will if you promise to wear these tight little skirts from now until I die,” he groans, pushing the hem of her skirt further up her thighs.

“Oh my God, fine! Just—”

She’s in the middle of wrenching her skirt out of his grasp when there’s a knock on the door.

“Ms. Jackson? Mr. Solo? The ride is here. Do you need any help?” Mitaka asks.

“No!”

They both say it at the same time, one of them sounding considerably less panicked than the other.

Rey gives him a final shove off of her, glaring up at him. She must not look very threatening, though, because he just smiles.

 _Behave_ , she mouths, then turns around to open the door.

“All done!” she chirps, skirting around Mitaka and making a beeline towards the stairs again. Once she’s back in the relative safety of the kitchen, she leans against the counter, trying to regain control of her rapid breathing.

At this rate, she’s pretty sure Ben Solo is going to be the actual, literal death of her.

But at least she’ll die getting the best dick of her entire life.

\---

Rey watches the red carpet coverage back at the office with Kaydel and Jess. It’s nerve wracking, to say the least, waiting to catch a glimpse of Ben in the sea of celebrities. 

She’d sent Mitaka off with a small toolkit of essentials for any possible wardrobe malfunction. A lint roller, a needle and thread, a change of shoes, deodorant, wipes, things like that. She has every confidence that he’ll be able to help Ben if something does happen, but she’s nervous all the same. The not-knowing what he looks like, or if he’s still presentable, is making her sweat.

That is until halfway into the arrivals, when she finally catches sight of a publicist ushering his big, hulking form over to Giuliana Rancic for an interview. Then she starts sweating for another reason altogether, faced with the reminder of just how attractive he is.

“Oh wow. He looks so good, Rey,” Kaydel says, reaching across her to grab some popcorn from Jess.

“That suit is _killer_. He’ll be at the top of the Best Dressed list for men, mark my words,” Jess agrees.

“Thanks, guys,” Rey manages, distracted.

He looks even more striking on camera. Stunning, actually. His suit is sleek, hugging every muscle. His hair looks lush and shiny, perfectly styled thanks to Rose. Finn’s done a wonderful job on his makeup, too. Ben’s skin looks healthy and natural and his lips, Rey is glad to see, don’t look bruised at all. Whatever concealer Finn had used on him can really withstand the test of time.

 _And the test of frantically kissing someone all over their neck in a bathroom_ , Rey thinks, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

“Ben Solo! I’ve been dying to meet you in person. You’re getting quite a lot of buzz for your performance in _Starkiller_ , sir. Congratulations on your nomination!” Giuliana coos, obviously trying to loosen him up a bit.

“Hello,” he gets out.

Rey frowns. He’s back to his tense, angry self. No longer the relaxed, teasing, dare she say even _sweet_ person he’d been in private. He looks distinctly uncomfortable, like he’d rather be anywhere else, and it’s making her rethink every previous assumption about him. Had Rose been right after all? Is he just incredibly shy in public? Nervous around strangers instead of an asshole? Now that she’s watching him closely, comparing him to how he’d acted with her alone, something isn’t quite adding up…

Giuliana laughs, addressing the camera. “He’s a man of very few words, ladies and gentleman. Now, Ben,” She reaches out to touch his arm then stops short, like she’s no longer sure that’s the right thing to do. “Tell us who you’re wearing this evening?”

“Amilyn Holdo.”

There’s a pause as Giuliana waits for him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, she laughs again, more nervously this time. “Well, she’s done a very impressive job. You’re looking tall, dark, and handsome. One of the best dressed men we’ve seen so far. Very sharp.”

He nods once in acknowledgement. “Thank you.”

Giuliana doesn’t stop it there, though. To Rey’s growing secondhand embarrassment, she leans in and nudges Ben’s side with her elbow. “Between you and me, is there a lucky lady that’ll get to welcome you home tonight if you win Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama?”

Oh, yikes. That hadn’t been a good question. He’s full-on scowling now, his jaw moving like it usually does. Rey holds her breath, waiting for him to walk away, cutting the interview short.

But to her shock he actually answers, looking right at the camera when he does.

“She knows who she is.”

“WHAT!” Kaydel screams beside her. “Oh my god, did he just say that? I thought he was single!”

Rey sits there in stunned disbelief, watching words come out of Giuliana’s mouth but not really hearing them. All she hears in her head over and over is:

_‘She knows who she is.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all. So, I had originally planned on wrapping this story up near the Oscars (since, ya know, Adam in a suit ;)) but it's looking like this will have one or two more updates. Stay tuned!
> 
> Thank you:  
> To the lovely sunshinexxmoonlight, who made the moodboard for this chapter. I love it, dear!! <3 
> 
> To KBB, for once again looking over this chapter for me. 
> 
> TO YOU, AWESOME READERS! You make me excited to return to this story and write a little more of it each day!


	6. Chapter 6

\---

Rey doesn’t usually watch the entirety of the Golden Globes. It’s three hours long, the hosts are rarely funny, and the fashion is far more interesting than the award show itself.

This year, though…

She’s alone at the office, long after Jess and Kaydel have left, her eyes still glued to the TV screen. Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama is one of the final categories of the entire show. Now that it’s finally happening, her heart is in her throat.

Richard Gere and Julianne Moore introduce the nominees as the camera cuts to each actor in the audience. Bradley Cooper. Willem Dafoe. Rami Malek. John David Washington.

And then…

“For _Starkiller_ : Ben Solo.”

Although he receives a large amount of applause from his co-stars and the other tables around him, he looks like he doesn’t know what to do with the attention. He holds his hand up in a not-quite-wave of acknowledgement and manages a not-quite-smile.

But he’s trying. Oh, he’s trying. He may look and act like a grump but beneath all that, there’s someone who is putting himself out there, being vulnerable. Now that she knows this, now that she can recognize him for who he really is, Rey wants to kiss him all over again. Especially after what he’d said during the red carpet interview.

_She knows who she is._

Yes, she knows who she is...and now she’s rooting for the man who’d been #1 on her shit list until yesterday. It’s strange, how experiencing a softer, caring, more passionate side of him has altered her feelings so drastically. She wants him to succeed, to get all the recognition he deserves, to go even further in his career. She wants good things to happen to Ben Solo - and she wants to be one of those good things.

Rey smiles at that thought, crossing her fingers as Julianne Moore opens the envelope to announce the winner.

“And the Golden Globe goes to...Rami Malek!” 

“What? No!” Rey yells at the screen, toppling over the long-forgotten bowl of popcorn on the couch in her haste to stand. 

She watches as Rami collects his award and gives what sounds like a truly heartfelt acceptance speech. As he thanks his fellow actors, the camera cuts to Ben and the other nominees one last time. He’s clapping, looking like a good sport despite his perpetual frown, but Rey can’t help but feel disappointed on his behalf.

Grabbing her phone, she finds him in her list of contacts and composes a quick text, unwilling to stop and consider whether it’s a good idea to see him again so soon.

 

**[Outgoing - 7:45pm]**

_Hey...you okay? Did you still want me to come over later?_

 

To her surprise, she gets an almost immediate text back.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:46pm]**

_Please_.

 

**[Outgoing - 7:46pm]**

_Alright. I will. You should be paying attention to the awards btw. Not texting me_.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:46pm]**

_No. I should be with you, giving your pretty little pussy the attention it deserves_.

 

Rey breaks out into a sweat at that. She’s so flustered she doesn’t get the chance to type out a reply before he sends her _four_ more.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:46pm]**

_I need to get out of here. I miss you_.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:47pm]**

_Badly_.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:47pm]**

_I’ll be home by 10 and I want to see you there_.

 

**[Ben Solo - 7:47pm]**

_With a skirt. Whether you wear panties underneath is up to you_.

 

“Oh God. Breathe, Rey,” she reminds herself, setting her phone down.

Exhaling shakily, she gets to work picking up the popcorn off the office floor. God knows her legs will probably thank her for this warm-up later.

\---

As she’s locking up the office, Ben texts her again to let her know he’s on the way back to his apartment. This leaves her just enough time to go home and change.

She decides to keep on the same pencil skirt she’s worn all day but opts for one of her lower-cut black tops to tuck into it. Underneath it all there’s a surprise for him. The only lingerie set she owns, purchased on a whim. She’s hasn’t found an occasion to wear it before, never comfortable enough to try it on for previous partners, but Ben is different. He makes her feel sexy, desired, and beautiful. She wants to make him feel the same tonight.

The look he gives her when he answers the door only strengthens her resolve. He looks exhausted, his suit’s jacket undone and his tie loose around his neck, but his eyes light up when he sees her.

He immediately pulls her inside and shuts the door behind them, pressing her up against it like he had last night. Ever the one for dramatics, he lifts her up into his arms _again_ , kissing her until she’s breathless and dizzy, her cunt already aching for him.

“Hi,” she whispers against his lips.

“Baby,” he sighs back, sounding relieved.

“Tired?”

“Not of you. Fuck no. Never of you.” Holding her tight against him, he turns around and carries her further into his apartment. “The award show bullshit is draining, that’s all.”

She kisses his cheek softly. “I’m sorry you didn’t win.”

“Don’t be, it’s stupid. Besides, you’re here now. My night just got infinitely better.”

Sensing he’s touchy about the Golden Globes, Rey lets it go for now, burying her face into the crook of his neck.

He sets her down on the black, minimalist sofa in his equally minimalist living room and starts kissing his way up her feet, her ankles, her legs, and oh _God_ , now he’s almost at her thighs...

If they’re not careful, this poor piece of furniture is going to suffer the same fate as his suit.

She can’t have that. It’s a nice sofa. All leather. Easily worth several thousand dollars. Ben might not have any respect for expensive fabrics, but _she does_.

Besides, she’d envisioned him finding out about the lingerie in a little bit more of a teasing way than him sticking his head up her skirt with no preamble.

“Ben.” Rey tangles her fingers in his hair, tugging on his dark locks gently. “Look at me.”

He groans but doesn’t stop kissing her, prying her thighs apart with his giant hands. “Fuck, you smell amazing. Like vanilla and fruit and pastries.”

“Not pastries. Popcorn. I had some earlier.”

“Mm. I want to eat some off of you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

She pulls his hair again, harder, and that finally gets his full attention. He stares up at her, his pupils blown wide with desire. Her stomach somersaults at the sight.

“‘ _She knows who she is_?’” she questions.

He grins. “Did you like that?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah? You like me telling all the world that you’re mine?”

Rey swallows. “Yes. And now I want to show you how much I liked it.”

“Then open these gorgeous legs of yours and come on my tongue again.”

Emboldened, she throws back, “Why don’t you come on my mine instead?”

He blinks rapidly, his mouth slightly parted. “Oh _fuck_. I’m halfway there if you keep saying that.”

“Alright, let’s go.” She pushes on his chest, lightly, and manages to stand on her wobbly legs, looking down at him. He’s kneeling before her, just as she was for him last night before everything caught fire.

“I’d love to but that’s not part of the plan. I promised you a dozen orgasms tonight, remember? I intend to keep that promise.”

Rey can’t help but laugh. They’re both running on fumes at this point and he’s _still_ determined to do that? How is he even real?

“I thought you were kidding.”

His hands snake up her legs again, insistent. “I really wasn’t.”

Rey catches hold of his hands before they can disappear under her skirt, pushing them back down. “A dozen orgasms sounds impossible. And a lot of work for two people who’ve gone a day without sleep. Let’s aim for something more realistic.”

“It’s not impossible if we try hard enough. Which I’m more than willing to do. And fuck sleep. I can sleep when I’m dead.”

“You _will_ be dead if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“Why take care of myself when it’s so much more fun to take care of you?”

“You shush.”

He nips at her knee. “Or what?”

“Ow! Or else you won’t get your surprise.”

His eyes go dark and dangerous at that. “My surprise?”

Trying her best to keep from smiling, she nods sternly. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go upstairs, strip down to your underwear, then wait for me on the bed. Do you understand?”

In lieu of a reply he resumes kissing up her thighs. Uncooperative, handsome bastard. Not to be distracted, she grabs a fistful of his hair again, yanking on it until he’s looking at her. “ _Do you understand_?”

Ben narrows his eyes, hissing out a breath. “ _Yes_.”

“Go on, then.”

He stands, slowly, until he’s towering over her. “What are we ever going to do about your smart mouth?”

“I have several ideas if you do what I say.”

“ _Fuck_ _,_ Rey.”

“If you don’t, I’ll change my mind.”

That finally gets him moving. Throwing her one last heated glance over his shoulder, he hurries up the stairs. She makes sure he’s completely out of sight before she toes off her flats, then gets started unzipping the back of her skirt.

“Are you on the bed?” she calls up.

“Hang on a minute, princess. It’s hard to get this suit off without your talented little hands helping me.”

Heart racing, she pulls her skirt down her legs until it’s pooled at her feet, then steps out of it.

“Understandable. Just no peeking! You’ll ruin the surprise.”

“Not even one peek?”

“You know the answer to that.”

He grumbles out what sounds like ‘bossy little tease’ but he definitely obeys; she can hear him discard his clothing and then the rustle of bedsheets as he lays down.

Taking a fortifying breath, Rey pulls her top off. No more clothes, just a matching demi-cup bra and thong. Both are in black but made with incredibly sheer lace, as they’re meant to entice. She’s sure they will; he’d been very appreciative of her naked body last night. She’s nervous, though. She’s never seduced anyone before. Not knowingly, anyway. For all she knows, she could be horrible at it.

Still, this is about him. If it makes him feel good, she’ll willingly embarrass herself in the process.

“Are you ready?” she asks, making her way up to the loft.

“God, yes.”

“Alright.” She stops a few steps from the top. “Now close your eyes.”

“Do I have to?”

“Do you want your surprise?”

“I’m going to die if I don’t get it.”

“So close them.”

He sighs loudly. “Fine. They’re closed, sweetness.”

He comes into her view, looking like sin. His back against the headboard, wearing nothing but his black boxer briefs like she’d told him to. He’s fully hard, the outline of his cock straining against the fabric.

As she approaches the bed, she spots his black tie on the floor. She picks it up, remembering how he’d tied her wrists up with it last night. It’ll be an interesting addition to what she had planned...and will hopefully forestall him grabbing her like he’s taken to doing.

“Hold your hands out in front of you, clasped. But keep those eyes closed.”

He shifts on the bed, obviously impatient, but otherwise does what she says. When he feels what she ties around his wrists, though, he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Tying me up to have your way with me?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re very dominant when you want to be, you know that?”

“Yep. How does it feel to give up the control?”

He hums. “Feels the same way as when you talk back to me. Different but exciting.”

“Good.”

She eyes the knot she tied critically. His wrists are bound tight, tighter than he had hers last night, but he can work the tie loose if he really tries. Satisfied, she returns to the end of the bed, propping up one of her knees on the mattress.

“Okay. You can open your eyes.”

When he does, he looks absolutely feral, his desperate eyes raking over her body.

“Oh _fuck_ you look amazing. Come here. _Right now_.” He starts to move towards her, shifting his balance to his legs, but she holds up a hand.

“Uh-uh. No touching. If you touch, I won’t wrap my lips around your big, beautiful cock. You’re already so hard for me, it’d be a shame not to show my appreciation.”

“Jesus _fuck_.” He starts pulling on the tie in earnest, trying to get his hands free. “I need to touch you or I swear, I’m going to pass out if I don’t.”

Rey crawls onto the bed slowly, swaying her hips for effect. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m an actor, it’s what I do best,” he snaps.

“So touchy.” She reaches his thighs and makes a place for herself in between them, crossing her legs behind her, looking up at him with her best attempt at a sultry smile.

It seems to do the job. Ben is breathing heavy, his chest heaving, nostrils flared as he takes in her position.

“God, I love your body. I want to taste your sweet little breasts. They look so good in that lace. And your ass in that thong...fuck. Begging to be spanked. Grabbed. Or more. I could do _really_ dirty things with you.”

“Later.”

“Why not _now_ ,” he insists, trying to move towards her again.

“Because I’m going to taste you instead and you’re going to let me.”

Holding his hips down with as much strength as she can muster, she mouths his cock through his underwear, getting him wet. He shouts, bucking his hips up, but she just shoves him back down, her hand reaching into his boxers to pull him out.

His cock is beautiful. Flushed red, the head thick, precum coating its surface already. Unable to resist, she licks it up, then wraps her lips around the tip.

The _sounds_ he’s making are incredible. He’s the very definition of a vocal lover, gasping and groaning and even whimpering when she takes more of him inside.

And the _words_ he’s saying are making her head spin.

“You gorgeous thing, sucking on my cock, pert little ass in the air while you do it. You feel so good, fuck _,_ I’m going to _wreck_ you when I get my hands on you, baby, do you hear me? I’m — my _God_ , your tongue, keep doing that, shit, you’re gonna kill me, Rey, _please_ —”

Sucking in a breath through her nose, Rey swallows as much of him as she can.

After that it’s a blur of motion. He’s gotten rid of the tie somehow and he’s pulling her off of him, grabbing at her hips, lifting her so she’s astride him.

“Need you baby, I need you, I’m not going to last much longer, fuck, please ride me,” he moans, roughly pushing her thong to the side, the tip of his cock slipping through her folds.

He enters her in one long stroke, both of them crying out at the same time. Then they’re moving frantically as one, fucking each other like their lives depend on it. Rey snapping her hips against his, Ben grabbing her ass to penetrate her even deeper.

“Grind on me. Use me. Come on my cock.”

“You like it when I use you?” she gasps, her words broken.

“I do, I fucking love it. Faster.”

“Oh God. Oh God. I’m gonna come.”

“Do it. Make me come with you. Force me to.”

That last demand does her in, her vision whiting out as the strength of her orgasm hits her. Ben is right behind her. He growls out a string of profanities while he slams her hips down to meet his, his cock throbbing as he fills her up.

Rey collapses against his chest like a rag doll, feeling entirely weightless. Ben holds her against him, rubbing her back in slow circles while they both come down from the natural high.

“Thank you,” he murmurs after awhile, kissing her forehead.

“Mhm. You’re welcome.”

“I don’t just mean the sex. I mean for everything. Today was...a lot for me. Knowing that I had you to look forward to...I wouldn’t have been able to get through it as easily without you in mind.”

Rey meets his gaze and her stomach flips at what she sees there. Happiness, warmth, affection...no, something even stronger than that, something that she’s scared to put a name to, even though she knows what it is.

Even if she feels the same.

Because she’s falling for Ben Solo, and she’s falling fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shoutout to my beta KBB. You are so encouraging and thoughtful. This chapter wouldn't be written if it weren't for you cheering me on. You da best <3 
> 
> Thank you, readers, for sticking with this story! Hopefully the wait for the next update won't be so long. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought? xx


	7. Chapter 7

 

\---

“Ben.”

“Hm?”

“I need to pee.” 

“Mhm.” He breathes into her neck and squeezes her tighter.

“I’m serious.”

“Mm.”

Rey sighs. She never would have taken Ben Solo for a cuddler but he is. Although ‘cuddler’ is putting it lightly. He’s clinging to her like a damn octopus. One of his legs thrown over her hip, the other leg wedged between her thighs, both of his arms locked around her. She grudgingly admits that it is really, really nice to be held like this.

But she really, _really_ needs to pee.  

She tries to gently pry herself out of his arms at first. When that fails, she pushes him away and quickly scoots toward the edge of the bed. That doesn’t work either. He’s curled around her again in seconds, pulling her back towards him.

So Rey does what mean foster siblings used to do to her at night.

Turning in his arms to face him, she holds his nose between her thumb and pointer finger, waiting for him to react.

It doesn’t take long.

“S’matter?” he gasps, jerking awake. He looks adorably confused with his hair mussed and a pillow indentation on his cheek.

Rey stifles a giggle as she unplugs his nose. “I need to pee but I can’t get loose from you.”

“Did you suffocate me to wake me up?”

“...Maybe?”

He cracks a sleepy smile. “Breathplay. Kinky. I like that.” His hands wander south to grab at her ass. “Not as much as I like this, though.”

“You are an incorrigible, horny mess even when you’re half-asleep.”

“And you fucking love it. Don’t you, sweetness? You love knowing I’m going to keep you in my bed for a week and have my way with you like the incorrigible, horny mess that I am.”

Rey blushes, pointedly avoiding that question. He already knows the answer, anyway.

“Let me pee and go back to sleep, weirdo.”

He nuzzles her forehead but reluctantly lets go. “Pee. Then come back. I slept like a baby with you here.”

She did too. She can’t remember the last time she slept so soundly. Getting dicked down within an inch of her life isn’t as easy as taking melatonin but holy shit, is it effective. They’ve been knocked out since eleven and it’s steadily approaching six in the morning. She could easily fall back asleep till noon, too. Now that the Golden Globes are over, work pressure is off for a few weeks until Oscar nominations. A nice lie-in with a giant, cuddly human furnace to keep her warm sounds heavenly.

And dammit, for once in her workaholic life she’s going to do exactly that. Just one quick scan of her text messages and she can put work from her mind and enjoy herself.

Enjoy Ben.

Because there’s so, so much of him to enjoy. Her sore body won’t let her forget that.

Rey grabs her phone and slips on Ben’s dress shirt on the way to the bathroom. Both her underwear _and_ her bra are missing this morning, but she can’t even be mad. He’d made her feel so good last night, he can have as many stolen items of lingerie as he wants.

She glances at herself in the bathroom mirror as she walks in, expecting to look like death or at the very least bedraggled. But she looks...great. She usually has a practical perspective of her own appearance; she either looks ‘fine’ or ‘not fine’ depending on the day, nothing in between, but she can say with full confidence that right now, she looks pretty. And healthy. And...God, is it crazy to say ‘loved up’, even if it’s just a silent admission to herself? Because she does look like that.

Her cheeks and lips are pink, her undereye circles are not so pronounced as they were yesterday, and her skin is practically glowing. It’s yet another testament to how amazing he makes her feel. She may still have some reservations about this... _thing_ between them, but her body is clearly thriving from what’s been done to it.

Biting on the inside of her cheek to control the ridiculous grin she feels tugging at her mouth, she pushes away from the bathroom sink to shut the door behind her. Ben may now be intimately aware of every secret part of her, but she draws the line at him hearing or watching her pee. That’s just…no. Too much too soon.

Once she’s done relieving herself and, to her embarrassment, wiping away the dried mess of their combined cum between her legs, she gargles with his mouthwash while checking her texts. One text each from Finn and Rose not-so-subtly asking about each other, two from Jess fangirling about Lady Gaga’s periwinkle Valentino gown from last night, and...six from Kaydel? That’s unlike her.

Frowning, Rey opens their message conversation.

 

**[Kaydel Connix - 11:30pm]**

Guess who is trending on Twitter?

 

**[Kaydel Connix - 11:30pm]**

At first I thought it was because of his outfit (it should have been, tbh, you did so well putting it together)

 

**[Kaydel Connix - 11:30pm]**

But...no. There are twitter stans who are deadass freaking out about that comment he gave on the red carpet

 

**[Kaydel Connix - 11:31pm]**

Like they are legit upset lol. I had no idea he had so many diehard fans. Did you?

 

**[Kaydel Connix - 11:31pm]**

Check it out if you need a laugh.

 

The last message is a link to Twitter.

Rey opens it, her morbid curiosity winning her over. She knows from her several not-at-all creepy internet searches that Ben has a rapidly growing fanbase of mostly young women, but how bad can it be?

The answer: enough to make her spit out her mouthwash in shock.

Because Ben is not only trending.

There’s a _hashtag_.

#SoloIsntSolo

It’s _full_ of fans who are losing their shit. Some of them are genuinely excited, but the large majority seem hellbent on shipping Ben with his co-star from _Starkiller_. The actress who played Kylo’s enemy-sometimes-lover is married with two children. That doesn’t seem to phase Twitter, though. They want Kylo Ren and Kira to date in real life and won’t settle for anything less.

 

**@Kirlo_Obsessed:**

He BETTER be talking about our talented goddess Bazine fucking Netal or I’ll riot in the streets. #KiraAndKyloAreEndgame #SoloIsntSolo #BenSolo

 

**@slut4solo:**

Y’all this is giving me SO many ideas for Kirlo fic. Now I want to write a Forbidden-Lovers-in-Hollywood AU. Who would read it?? #SoloIsntSolo #BenSolo

 

**@bensolosteponme:**

it’s pretty much common knowledge that bazine is miserable in her marriage. i bet him announcing that on national TV cheered her up lmao!! our tol grumpy baby boy #bensolo is for sure getting laid tonight ladies #soloisntsolo

 

**@TrashForDaddyRen:**

#BenSolo was looking directly into the camera when he said that because he can’t tell Bazine directly. They also sat awfully close to each other at the Globes. No further proof needed. They’re in a secret relationship people. #KirloConfirmed #SoloIsntSolo

 

That particular tweet has two thousand retweets.

Two. Thousand.

Ignoring the voice of reason - probably her assigned FBI agent - that’s telling her to put her phone down, Rey goes to sit on the edge of the bathtub to keep wading through the insanity.

Five minutes into scrolling, she comes across another hashtag. Unlike the fairly harmless tweets of #SoloIsntSolo, this one actually freaks her out.

#FindSolosSecretGF

Unable to help herself, Rey clicks on it, because she’s an idiot.

 

**@kylos_babygirl1997:**

SHE KNOWS WHO SHE IS??? WHAT THE FUCK DOES HE MEAN?? WHO??!? WHO IS THIS BITCH. I NEED HER ADDRESS. I JUST WANT TO TALK!!! #FINDSOLOSSECRETGF #BENSOLO

 

That tweet is accompanied by six knife emojis. 

Then there are a few tamer but no less offensive ones, like:

 

**@saveahorse_imridingsolo:**

you idiots are freaking out over nothing. whoever this bitch is, i guarantee she’s a typical dumb hollywood slut that he’ll forget about in a month. that said...i still want to know what she looks like lol. he’s got to have a type, right? #bensolo #findsolossecretgf

 

The one definitely stings, but the tweet that makes Rey’s blood run cold isn’t hate-filled at all.

It’s a photo.

The caption reads:

 

**@r_casterfo:**

Not a fan by any means but I live close to Solo. Saw him with this girl. DM me for more info. #FindSolosSecretGF

 

The quality isn’t great, but the man in the picture is unmistakably Ben. She could recognize his hair and those wide shoulders anywhere by now. He’s bent over, kissing someone.

 _A female someone_.

Hands shaking, Rey zooms in. Ben’s face is obscuring most of the woman’s features and the lighting is pretty awful. To a casual observer, it could be anyone. But Rey _knows_ who it is.

That’s _her_ hair in a messy bun.

 _Her_ arms around his neck.

 _Her_ outfit from early yesterday morning, when he had kissed her goodbye after walking her to her car.

Someone has taken a photo of Rey _kissing Ben Solo_ and put it up on the internet for all the world to see, including Ben’s entitled, overprotective fans.

And now those entitled, overprotective fans are organizing a cyber witch hunt to find her and do who knows what. Harass her, doxx her, ruin her life? Her career? Her career _is_ her life. If this gets out to news outlets, that she’s with Ben...

“SHIT!”

Rey dashes from the bathroom to the stairs. She has to get out of here. _Now_ _._

“Where are you going?” Ben asks, sitting up in bed.

Rey winces. Fuck. She’d hoped that he’d fallen back asleep.

“I have to go!” she throws over her shoulder, racing down the steps.

“The fuck?” Ben calls after her. “Rey!”

She changes clothes as quick as she can, picking up her discarded skirt and blouse where she‘d left them in the living room last night. But she isn’t quick enough to avoid Ben. He runs down the stairs after her, tugging on a pair of black sweatpants.

“Rey? What’s wrong?”

Her fingers fumble as she tries to zip up her skirt and slip on her flats, and her heart is beating so fast she feels like she may pass out. And throw up. And possibly shit herself. This is panic unlike any she’s ever experienced before.

“I can’t - I - I need to go,” she hedges.

He doesn’t accept that answer. Of course he doesn’t. The man does nothing by halves and he won’t accept her vague half-answers, either.

“Hey, hey. Baby, talk to me.”

He wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a hug, rubbing his hands over her arms and back. Comforting her. It’s too much. It’s all too much. Less than ten minutes ago she’d been blissfully content and unaware of anyone or anything outside the peaceful sanctuary of Ben’s arms. Now she needs to be as far away from him as possible. Tears start to prick at her eyes. _Fuck_.

“Baby, no, don’t cry, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

He tenderly wipes at her eyes with his giant hands and that only makes her cry more.

“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be. Please, Ben?”

“Rey. You aren’t making sense, honey. Just breathe. What’s the matter?”

“I’ll - I’ll go to Maz tomorrow and tell her there were irreconcilable differences between client and stylist and we just couldn’t work through them. S-She’ll have to reach out to your people to change the contract but she’ll understand. Then Jess or Kaydel can help style you for the remainder of the time you’re in LA. But I just, I can’t—”

Ben shakes his head, frowning. “Woah woah woah. Stop. Just stop, Rey. _What_ is going on?”

Wordlessly, she pulls up the Twitter photo and hands her phone to him. Ben’s face turns white as he stares down at her phone screen, his mouth moving but no words coming out.

“That’s us,” Rey manages, choking back a sob. “Someone _took_ that. Of us.”

It’s violating in a way she never would have thought. That kiss had been special, private. She’d been so happy, sleep deprived though she was. No guy had ever walked her out to her car, thanked her for the night, and kissed her softly like that. And now...knowing that someone, some _stranger_ , had seen them in a moment like that and thought it was okay to take a picture...it’s a horrible, terrible feeling. Like being repeatedly punched in the gut.

Ben doesn’t look any more composed than her. He hands her phone back to her and starts running his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth.  

“This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have said that on TV. Fuck, what the hell was I thinking? It started this whole fucking mess. God, Rey, I’m so sorry.”

Rey rubs furiously at her wet cheeks, willing the tears to stop falling. “I’m sorry too. I just - I’m scared. I’m not...I’m not ready for whatever this is. Between us. It’s so good and it feels so right, but—”

He stops dead at that, his hair wild from messing with it and his eyes equally crazed. He clenches his jaw for a moment and then gathers her into his arms again, searching her face for answers.

“Rey, baby, please. We can work through this. Please?”

Rey can’t say anything. She’s crying too hard, blubbering like a baby, and that only seems to make him more desperate. He gets down on his knees and looks up at her like she’s his whole entire world and God, her heart is _actually_ breaking. She’s never seen him this raw, this honest, this hurt, and she feels like absolute shit. She traces the line of his nose, his cheekbones, committing every inch of his face to memory.

Because she’s already made up her mind.

She has to remove herself from this situation, for her sake and for Ben’s. That picture is the only reason she needs. His movie career is just starting. He’s almost certainly going to be nominated for an Oscar. Rey would never forgive herself if a scandal interfered with his chances in some way.

And she’d never, ever forgive herself for jeopardizing her own career if she were to say ‘fuck it’ and keep this going with him. No matter how much she likes him. No matter how electric their chemistry is, no matter how mind-numbingly good their sex feels.

No matter how big of an impression Ben Solo has permanently left on her body.

Left on her heart.

On her soul, as melodramatic as that sounds.

No matter the circumstances, this can’t continue.

“Ben,” she whispers, but he doesn’t hear her. He’s growing frantic now, kissing the palms of her hands as he talks fast, tripping over his words in his haste to get them out.

“What - what do you want? I will do anything. I’ll sue whoever took that photo. I’ll get Hux to smooth things over with Maz. I’ll fuckin’ - move to LA permanently to be with you, someplace quieter, out in the Valley or Pasadena or wherever the hell. Wherever you want. Or - or you can come to New York with me. Don’t you miss it, going to school there? My mom can help, she has plenty of contacts, she can find you a job in New York as a stylist, no problem. We can start a life there, Rey. It’s a big city, it’s easier to be anonymous, and—”

“Ben. Stop.”

“I know, it’s crazy, I haven’t known you for long and you don’t know a lot about me but I feel like I’ve known you my entire life. You get me, you understand me, you aren’t afraid to tell me when to shut the fuck up and I need you to be with me, Rey. Do you understand? I don’t want to be in this godforsaken town if I can’t have you by my side each morning when I wake up and each night before I fall asleep. You are the first and last thing I ever want to think about and—”

“BEN! STOP IT!”

Sobbing hard, she shoves him away from her and backs away, until her back is pressed against his front door. He stands up to close the distance between them but she holds up a hand. Unlike other times when he’s playfully ignored her demands, he actually listens now, his eyes wide and his mouth parted in shock, or hurt, or sadness. All of those? He looks exactly how she feels. Hopeless, miserable, heartbroken, and she can’t bear to see him like this another minute.

“If you care about me as much as you say you do, you’ll let me leave,” Rey gasps, reaching behind her to open the door, her eyes still locked with his. “And you _won’t_ follow me. You’ll stay here, and you’ll go about your life like you did before, and you’ll forget about me, Ben. Promise me?”

He stares at her for a few seconds, his bottom lip trembling, and then he shakes his head once. “How can you ask that of me? I can’t do that.”

Rey lets out a humorless, watery laugh. Even now, he’s stubborn to a fault. But arguing with him any further will just delay the inevitable. She’s already drawn this out too long and it’s time to end it.

“You can’t do that but I can. And I will. Right now.”

“Rey, wait—”

Holding back another sob, she wrenches the door open and flees.

She doesn’t slow down, doesn’t look behind her to see if he’s coming after her, just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. Down the dimly lit hallway of his apartment building, down the numerous flights of stairs to the ground floor, and out onto the street where a small crowd has gathered.

Wait...small crowd? _It’s 6am_.

“THERE SHE IS!”

A bright flash of light.

Another.

Then another.

Rey blinks furiously, trying to see past the spots dancing in her vision, but it’s no use. She’s blinded by it.

She can hear the shouting, though.

And the rhythmic clicks of camera shutters.

“HEY, BABY, WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”

“ARE YOU BEN SOLO’S MYSTERY GIRLFRIEND?”

“HAVE YOU JUST COME FROM HIS APARTMENT? WALK OF SHAME?”

“WHO ARE YOU, SEXY? GIVE US A SMILE!”

Rey stumbles, holding up her hand to shield her eyes from the barrage of flashes.

She feels a hand on her arm. Cold, clammy, foreign. Someone is _grabbing_ at her, pulling at her, trying to get her to show her face again.

She wrenches herself away and loses her balance altogether, falling flat on her ass on the hard sidewalk. The flashes increase in frequency and laughter rings out, followed by more catcalls and taunts.

And then a booming, terrifying voice, one she knows all-too-well, interrupts it all.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!”

After that, it’s all a blur.

The cameras divert from her, having found a far more interesting thing to capture. Her vision is still fucked, but she can just barely make out Ben’s bare-chested, hulking form roughly pushing a man with a camera up against a car, holding him by the collar of his shirt. The car alarm starts beeping, only adding to the chaos of shouting and camera clicks.

Another paparazzo comes up behind Ben, trying to pull him away.

Big mistake.

Ben turns around, rears his arm back, and punches the man in the face.

The guy collapses to the ground with a yell, and the cameras start flashing all over again.

Rey doesn’t stick around to see what happens next.

Forcing herself to her feet, she sprints in the opposite direction to her car that’s parked a block away from the apartment building. She loses her shoes along the way but they’re the least of her concerns.

Her number one priority is getting the hell out of here, speeding home, and hiding away in her apartment until the world ends.

She’ll gladly welcome the apocalypse. It’ll be far, far less traumatizing than whatever the fuck just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh...well...it couldn't be all smut, could it? *ducks* 
> 
> But fear not! I can't stomach angst for long. Their HEA is right around the corner. I listened to the Reylo Bard herself, Taylor Swift, while writing this and came to the conclusion that "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" sums up this pair very nicely :) 
> 
> Huge thank you to my beta [@KeyBumbleBee](https://twitter.com/KeyBumbleBee) for reading this over, providing constant encouragement, [MAKING ME A BESPOKE PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1v52n3bAPjrfZ83ZJFvIwM), [BESPOKE ART](https://twitter.com/alfreylo/status/1109227858000523270) and a moodboard? How are you real, Keely? 
> 
> Let me know what you thought <3
> 
> P.S. All twitter names are made up...if you happen to have one of these usernames, DONT SUE ME LMAO


	8. Ben

\---

Ben had been expecting Maz Kanata. She’s the Kanata in Kanata Styling, after all.

From his vague recollection of her, he knows that she’s an elderly lady who always wears comically huge glasses and is even shorter than his mother.

The woman who walks into the room is none of those things.

She’s young, in her mid-twenties if he had to guess. No glasses. Average height. 

He immediately knows she could be trouble.

From her sunny California smile, to her tight little skirt, to the smattering of freckles on her nose.

Then he hears her voice for the first time and ‘could be trouble’ amends to ‘definitely trouble’.

She’s not a Cali girl after all.

 _British_.

He never knew he had a severe, debilitating weakness for British girls but he does. It’d been latent and she’s brought it out with her cheery little hello. 

Yes, she’s definitely trouble, and he could definitely do bad things to her.

With her.

 _Really_ bad things.

To avoid that, he needs to stay the hell away from her. Except that isn’t looking like an option when she approaches him with a tape measure, explaining that she needs to take some preliminary measurements.

 _Fuck_.

He nods, more of a jerk of his head than anything, trying very hard to concentrate on breathing when she begins. She’s quick, efficient, but every touch of her warm hands to his body feels electric. And the way she smells...he’ll never forget it. Like vanilla and strawberries.

He wonders if she tastes like that, too.

His thoughts spiral downward from there. By the end of the measuring he can feel himself shaking, and it’s by sheer force of will that he isn’t noticeably hard. She goes to take a seat, crossing her legs, that damn pencil skirt riding up her toned thighs.

Hux starts asking her questions about the styling, and Ben can feel an unfamiliar but not entirely unrecognizable feeling stirring within him: jealousy. He barely knows this woman, but he’s _jealous_ that she’s talking to his manager.

He’s angry.

He’s _fuming_.

He recognizes the anger is more at himself and how fast he’s letting this stranger get under his skin, but all their talk of _colors_ and _jewel tones_ only worsens his mood. Colors have always been a touchy subject for him even if they don’t know that. So he lashes out.

She rushes to agree to his demands - absolutely no colors for a suit, only black - and his sense of calm is restored, seeing how easily he’s unsettled her.

 _Good_.

If he’s scared her and she’s skittish, she’ll keep her distance and won’t test him, and in turn he won’t be distracted by her.

...Or so he thinks.

Their day spent shopping changes things.

Turns out she’s a little spitfire when she’s pushed to her limit. Not skittish or timid like their first meeting had led him to believe.

And turns out he _likes_ this bold side of her. She tells him like it is, has no problem being openly critical, and isn’t afraid to throw an ugly ass sweater in his face and demand he buy it.

Her attitude gets him heated, no doubt about it, but it’s also refreshing. Everyone else tiptoes around him like he’s a ticking time bomb. Maybe he is sometimes. He’s gotten better at controlling his anger over the years but hasn’t figured out how to stop being so fucking awkward. His being reserved, paired with his size, can come across as intimidating to others.

Not to her, though.

She doesn’t give a shit, and because she doesn’t give a shit, he knows that he needs more of her around. He’d be an idiot to let her go. To lose her. And that’s exactly what she’s threatening.

“You’re going to get this sweater,” she snaps.

“No, I’m not.”  
  
Her eyes flash dangerously. “Yes, you are. Or I’m going to tell Maz to drop your sorry ass off her list of clients.”

It’s no bluff. She’s absolutely serious.

Which is why he forces himself to leave their sexually charged department store standoff to immediately call Maz Kanata for a meeting.

Rey Jackson is his stylist, and she’s going to remain his stylist. His and only his, whether she likes it or not.

She isn’t getting rid of him so easily.

\---

As he hoped, Rey doesn’t tell Maz the truth during the meeting.

Instead, she makes him pay for his deception in smaller, passive aggressive ways. 

Showing up late to their agreed upon appointments, glaring at him as she sips her Starbucks. Rolling her eyes when she thinks he can’t see her, or complaining about him to her colleagues when she thinks he can’t hear.

He’s never wanted to spank someone more.

He’d do it, too, if he weren’t already pushing his luck with her.

Still, that doesn’t stop him from thinking about it.

...Among other things.

He wakes up in a sweat every night, his cock painfully hard and his balls heavy and aching. He loses count of the amount of times he touches himself to the thought of her.

He imagines fucking her fast and rough against a wall, one of those insanely sexy skirts hiked up around her waist. Her slapping his face while she rides him. Tying her up and taking her from behind, so he can watch her pussy lips drag against his length and her round little ass bounce with each thrust.

His fixation on her is out of control. He knows it.

And it only gets worse by the day. Worse and worse. He starts missing her sass and poorly veiled disdain for him so much that he finds himself coming up with increasingly pointless tasks for her to complete.

He doesn’t need his closet reorganized. He doesn’t need a last minute wardrobe change before _The Hollywood Reporter_ roundtable, either. It keeps her close, though. He feels better when she’s close. He’s more at ease, less on edge.

Yet close still isn’t close enough. He’s made it so that he has her full attention professionally, but professionally has a limit attached.

He doesn’t want a limit when it comes to her.

He wants her with him always, day and night.

Always in his head, in his bed, under him, on top of him, surrounding him.

These fervent, obsessive thoughts reach an all-time high when she shows up to his place the night before the Golden Globes.

And all it takes for these thoughts to pour out, for all the control he’s exhibited over the past few weeks to shatter, is a little mark on the side of her neck.

Because—

Someone else did that, someone that isn’t him, and that doesn’t seem to matter to her. She’s going about her business, on her knees in front of him, tying his fucking _shoelaces_ , oblivious to how physically sick with desire-laced jealousy he is, and that is just—

Too much.

Unacceptable.

“Get off your knees,” he manages to spit out.

She knows he’s angry. He can see it in her guarded expression, how she doubles down on her task. “I’m nearly done. Just hold still.”

 _Christ_ , she’s stubborn. 

“Get. Up.”

He pulls away from her. That doesn’t make her happy at all. He’s distracting her from her work, forcing her to listen to him when it’s obvious that she doesn’t want to, and she’s glaring up at him now.

“ _What_ is your problem tonight?”

“ _You’re_ my problem.”

Wrong thing to say even though it’s true. She starts yelling at him in earnest, hands on her hips, absolutely glorious in her fury.

Then she likens what he’s doing to her to torture, and his fury amps up to rival hers.

She has no _fucking_ idea what torture is.

He grabs at her, fully aware he’s overstepping. But she needs to know how wrecked he is over that damn love bite on her neck. How unbelievably jealous he is of the person who got to do that to her instead of him. Someone marking her in such an intimate way, having access to her body, claiming her as theirs.

“The _love bite_. On your neck. Who gave you that? Tell me!” he bites out, taking satisfaction in the way her anger seems to falter as she touches the mark. She furrows her delicate brow, frowning _._

“That’s - no! I burnt myself this morning. On my straightener.”

Ben blinks, his own anger instantly dissipating.

 _Oh_.

“It’s a burn. Not a - not a love bite,” she says quietly, swallowing. It’s hard for him to tell when people blush, but he’s almost positive she’s embarrassed.

 _You could reach out and touch her to know for certain_ , a voice urges him.

So he does. Placing his fingers where hers had been, right over the burn, her pulse point fluttering wildly beneath his touch.

Yes. She’s embarrassed. Flustered. _Nervous_.

Gasping softy, she pushes him away like he’s scalded her.

That little noise out of her is what ultimately breaks him. He needs to hear that noise again. And again. He needs to pull every last gasp and moan out of her until she’s begging his name. _His_ name. No one else’s.

Pulling her towards him, he kisses her, and the world around them catches fire.

\--- 

Ben had thought, after having her for the first time, that he would regain control of himself. An ounce of control, at the very least.

But there’s no control where she’s concerned. Every thing she does makes his blood sing, makes him give in to his baser instincts. How prudish she gets when he talks dirty to her. How perfectly tiny she is in his arms. How tight, hot, and amazingly wet her cunt feels, pulling his orgasm from him with every little clench of her muscles. How gorgeous and blissed out she looks when she comes on his cock.

She’s changed him on a molecular level. Suddenly, everything else aside from her is so unimportant. Work. Award shows. Food. Sleep.

It’s back to business for her, though. She’s already in stylist mode, fretting over the lovely little wet spots she’s left on his suit.

“I - I need to go and dry clean the suit. Immediately.”

She pulls up her panties like her pussy isn’t full of his cum and straightens her clothing. This makes him angry all over again. She can’t leave, not after what just happened. He won’t allow it. She’s wrecked him so completely that he’s addicted to her, and he’s not going to rest until he makes her feel the same.

“Not immediately, you don’t,” he says, closing the distance between them again.

“But—”

He slings her over his shoulder. She puts up a fight as expected so he spanks her. Finally. Like he’s been wanting to do for what feels like ages now.

“Ow! Ben! I’m serious!”

“You’re not going anywhere except to my bed.”

She tries to wriggle free as he carries her up the stairs, banging her fists against his back, skirt riding up her delicious ass. So he spanks her again. And again. Her cries of outrage swiftly turn to moans the more he does it.

 _Interesting_.

“You like me spanking you?”

No answer, only more wriggling and muttered expletives, and - God, she’s _grinding_ against him, trying so desperately to get friction in the awkward position she’s in.

“Poor little thing. Aching for me again so soon?”

“You wish,” she grits out.

“No, I _know_. You need to come again. You’re gasping for it. All those weeks of hating me did wild things to your sex drive, didn’t it? Be honest.”

She only squirms more in response, huffing out a breath.

Smiling to himself, he drops her unceremoniously on the bed. Her little tits bounce beneath her blouse, drawing his attention. Unable to help himself, he crawls on top of her and pulls her top down. Her nipples are hard, just begging to be played with.

“Quit manhandling me like a damn caveman!” she protests, but doesn’t make any move to stop him when he cups her breasts in his hands. She leans into his touch instead, biting her lip to suppress what he knows is a smile.

“I’m gonna manhandle the fuck out of you. All night,” he vows, grinding his front against hers.

“All night?” she echoes breathlessly.

“Yes, all night.”

“Ben, I have to go - oh _God—_ ” she trails off as he sucks one of her nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue over the sensitive tip.

He makes good on his promise. Several hours and orgasms later, she can barely pull herself out of bed. He’d fucked her hard through her fifth orgasm, her legs over his shoulders as he pounded her into the mattress. She’s going to feel him _everywhere_ for the next few days, a constant physical reminder of what he’s done to her.

As for what she’s done to him, he’s found a reminder of his own.

“Have you seen my underwear?”

He watches as she limps around the room collecting her things. He’d thrown her clothes everywhere last night, but had made sure to tuck her panties beneath his pillow. She’d been so overcome by the thorough finger fucking he’d given her, she hadn’t even noticed at the time.

“No,” he lies.

She narrows her eyes at that answer, clearly not buying it, but doesn’t press the issue further.

Before she leaves for the day, he makes her come for the sixth time. The pride he has in that number is only eclipsed by how responsive her body is to him. She squeezes around two of his fingers so sweetly, trembling as he pushes her body to its final limit, her head pressed against the mirror opposite his bed.

“ _Ben_ ,” she whispers, sounding broken. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

He kisses the sweat damp skin of her neck. “It’ll be a good death, I promise. Will you come for me one more time like this? In front of the mirror so I can see how gorgeous you look stuffed full of my fingers?”

“Oh, God.”

“Is that a yes?” He circles her clit with the hand not inside her wet heat. Her whole body jerks, her legs giving out. He pulls her back up and against him, holding her in place.

“Ben,” she whispers again. She’s so far gone, she actually sounds close to tears now.

“Shh. I’ve got you. Are you mine, sweetness? Tell me.”

He pinches her clit and she gasps, clenching around his fingers even tighter.

“Yes!”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Ben, I’m yours!” she cries.

“Good girl. Now come for me so I can taste it.”  

He crooks his fingers within her, increasing his pace and pressure. The look of absolute rapture on her face when she climaxes, the one he can see so clearly in the mirror, leaves him with no doubt in his mind. She’s his, and he’s hers, both of them now irrevocably changed by each other.

\---

The entire day of the Golden Globes is full of unnecessary primping and pampering, but Ben has never enjoyed himself more. He has Rey to thank for that. 

He’s an evil man for taunting her, giving her meaningful looks in full view of her hair and makeup friends, but he can’t help it. Her reactions are priceless. An adorable combination of outrage, embarrassment, and arousal.

It culminates in a hasty and heated encounter in his bathroom. She melts against him when he starts touching her, and he has her up on the counter with her panties halfway down her amazing legs before she manages to stop him.

She still doesn’t seem to fully grasp why he’s acting the way he is, and that both angers and arouses him even further. Has no one ever told her how sexy she is, how beautiful? How good she smells and how delicious she tastes?

Fucking idiots, whoever they are. He doesn’t want to think about the bastards that have come before him, and he never wants her to think of them, either. He’s going to make sure of that from here on out. She’s never going to doubt whether he wants her, will never have to guess his intentions.

He doesn’t plan on a message on national television being part of that, but it feels right in the moment. The red carpet is such bullshit, and the interviewer is clearly digging for information anyway, and he _does_ have someone who is going to welcome him home. Whether he wins or loses. The feeling he has when he’s with her is better than any fleeting happiness or excitement that an award would give him, so the words come out. He looks directly into the camera, hoping that she’s watching with bated breath, and says something just for her.

“She knows who she is.”

\---

The show goes as Ben expects, with someone far more deserving of Best Actor receiving the award.

He isn’t resentful of Rami Malek. The man had poured his heart and soul in the role, giving a performance befitting the absolute legend that is Freddie Mercury. The loss does still sting; he’s only human after all, and he isn’t above feeling affected by something like this.

But Rey texting him almost minutes after, asking him if he’s okay and if she can spend time with him again...it significantly improves his rapidly worsening mood. _This_ is what he’s always wanted but has never been able to find. Someone who understands him, someone who knows when he’s in a bad mood and how to fix it. Someone he knows he can count on and trust in this superficial city.

It’s her.

Rey Jackson.

Strong, sexy, smart, capable.

 _Perfect_.

Her showing up to his place looking like a dream, then proceeding to tie him up and tease him so much that he physically hurts, is just further proof of it.

She’s perfect, absolutely perfect.

Perfect for him.

And God help him, he loves her.

He’s never been in love before. He doesn’t know what the fuck it’s supposed to feel like.

But when she falls asleep in his arms, and he counts the eyelashes that fan her cheeks until sleep claims him too, he knows it has to be love. It has to be. He’s never felt this alive, this content, this _whole_ \- and it’s all because of her.

\---

Not even twelve hours later, she’s gone from his life.

He’d begged her to stay and she hadn’t. He’d followed after her, lovesick idiot that he is. He saw the paparazzi harass her on the street, watched as she fell down and hurt herself, and all hell had broken loose after that. Fifteen years of anger management down the drain but he doesn’t regret it one bit. Those creeps had taken _pictures_ of Rey, one had even touched her, and Ben couldn’t let them get away with it.

The pap whose nose he’d broken has decided not to press charges, which Ben supposes is one positive thing to come out of all of this. Everything else is looking grim.

His and Rey’s privacy has been invaded by some bastard. His manager Hux and his publicist Gwen Phasma are both blowing up his phone, which probably means that his fight with the paps is making headlines.

Worst of all, he can’t get in touch with Rey.

He’s tried to call her multiple times but is immediately directed to an automated voicemail. The texts he’s sent her aren’t showing that they’ve been delivered, either.

He has a horrible, sinking feeling that she’s blocked him. Thinking back to the very last conversation they had, it makes sense why she would. After finding that picture on Twitter, she’d been beside herself with fear and panic. He’s done irrational things when he’s been scared before, so he can’t fault her for doing the same.

But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

He’s in _love_ with her. He can’t forget that or change it, no matter how much she had pleaded for him to move on from her.

Moving on feels fundamentally wrong. Moving on feels like a cop out, like a band-aid covering up a gaping wound. Moving on would mean focusing on his career, his acting, his professional life, all the while feeling miserable and empty inside.

He’d rather quit altogether than go through that.

Which is exactly what he’s prepared to do.

He’s going to give everything up. Everything he’s worked for, _all_ of it, if it means he can still be with her.

He can only hope that she'll listen to him this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I am back. Sorry this took so long. A combination of happy life events (I'll have my Master's degree soon! New baby nephew!) and not-so-happy writer's block (boo) kept me stalling. But I *hope* I can finish this up soon in 2-3 more chapters. 
> 
> Moodboard for this chapter is by the wonderfully filthy and talented [KyloTrashForever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever/works). I love it so much, friend!
> 
> Also big thanks to my friends Keely and Michelle for taking a look at this for me and for being supportive of me always ❤️️ Y'all are the real MVPs


	9. Chapter 9

\---

**_BEN SOLO...OR KYLO REN?_ **

That’s what flashes up on screen. Her eyes are nearly swollen shut from crying so hard, but she can make out that much.

Rey shouldn’t even be doing this. It’s like watching a horrible trainwreck and being on board the train all at once. Painful, gut wrenching, horrific, but she has to see how it all ends.

The news reporter looks like everyone else on the network. Blonde, bronzed and botoxed as hell but still capable of looking positively gleeful at the story she’s about to cover.

“From his romantic message to a mystery woman on the red carpet yesterday, followed by the blow of losing out on a Golden Globe last night, one would think that rising star Ben Solo has had enough ups-and-downs within the past twenty-four hours to last him a lifetime. But that just doesn’t seem to be enough of a rollercoaster for the larger-than-life actor, who early this morning channeled the raw fury we’ve only seen in his portrayal of Kylo Ren...into a _bloody street brawl_! Yes, you heard that right. Take a look at this!”

The screen cuts to a short clip. The camera work is so shaky it makes Rey nauseous, but she knows what she’s watching. She’d been there. Ben, bare chested and furious, holding a paparazzo against a car. The car alarm shrieking out over the shouts. Another pap approaching Ben from behind to pull him away.

And then: Ben turning around in a flash, swinging his arm back like he’s a fucking baseball pitcher, and decking the second guy in the face.

Rey remembers there being blood. In the video, that’s all been blurred out along with the photographer’s face.

In doing so the pap’s privacy has been protected, even though _he’d_ been the one taking pictures without consent.

Rey would be furious about the unfairness of it all if she weren’t so miserably sad.

“From what we can make out, this is Ben Solo assaulting several photographers outside of his apartment building at approximately 6 a.m. this morning,” the reporter explains in a voiceover, her tone reeking of judgement. “Police were on the scene almost immediately. We are pleased to report that no major injuries were sustained aside from one unfortunate photographer's broken nose. But _why_ was Solo acting like his murderous, bloodthirsty counterpart in _Starkiller_? What got him _so_ heated when it’s his job to perform in front of cameras? Well, viewers, you don’t have to guess. We’ve got your answer.”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, but not before catching a glimpse of herself on screen. A set of photos, specifically. Her shielding her eyes from one of the camera’s flashes, and another one of her crumbled on the sidewalk after one of the paps had grabbed at her. 

“This woman was photographed leaving Ben Solo’s place only minutes before he ran out after her. Although we don’t have a name just yet, we are certain this is the lucky - or given the turn of events, most would say _unlucky_ \- mystery girlfriend who has stolen the actor’s heart. How certain are we, you may ask? Look no further these tweets. Yesterday user r_casterfo uploaded a photo with the hashta—”

Eyes still shut, Rey blindly reaches for her remote and turns the TV off.

Then, silence. Or as silent as LA can get during mid-morning traffic.

To her, it’s quiet enough.

Pulling the strings on her old Fashion Institute hoodie to tighten them around her face, Rey slumps over on the couch and wills herself to go back to sleep.

\---

When she wakes again, it’s to a horrible pounding headache. It only grows louder and louder as she lays there in the dark, trying to figure out how long she must’ve slept, and—

Wait, no. That’s not just a headache. Someone is _pounding at her front door_ , their voice muffled through the walls.

Her heart beating uncomfortably fast, Rey tiptoes her way through her darkened apartment to look out the peephole, holding her breath until she sees who it is.

“Do you think she’s asleep?”

“Maybe? But it’s only 10 p.m. She definitely hasn’t gone out. Her car is in the parking lot.”

“Uber exists, Rose.”

“That isn’t like her, Paige. Right, Jess? Kaydel?”

“Yeah, I don’t think she’s gone. I think she’s...in there. But, you know, maybe now isn’t a good time, guys? Maybe she wants to be left alone,” Jess pipes up.

“Her phone is off though. That’s really unlike her. I’m worried,” Kaydel frets.

A male voice rings out over their lowered voices, accompanied by a new round of poundings to the door. Rey jumps back, startled.

“Hey, Rey? We need to know if you’re alive if nothing else, okay??”

“Shh, Finn! I told you, quieter knocks! She has neighbors!”

Rey exhales a shaky sigh as they all continue to argue on the other side of the door. It’s fine. It’s alright. It’s just her friends. Not some rabid fan here to hurt her. Not a paparazzi or reporter trying to invade her privacy.

...But it’s not Ben, either.

A small, wretched part of her wishes it _had_ been. She hates herself for it. She’d been the one to leave, not him. She’d told him to forget her. Hell, she’s the one who’d blocked his number to prevent him from contacting her. She’s given him every reason to _not_ show up.

And yet...she’s disappointed that her friends, her lovely, supportive  friends, are the ones here instead of him. She’s a piece of shit for feeling that way but she does.

Still, she knows Finn is right. The very least she can do is let them know she’s okay. Because she is. Maybe not mentally okay, but physically, yes. Aside from the bad headache and the minor scrapes she has from falling on her ass this morning, she’s not hurt.

Sighing again, Rey fumbles in the dark to unlock the door and pull it open.

She’s immediately engulfed in a hug by Rose.

“Rey! I knew you were here but we wanted to just make sure—” She pulls back from the hug and holds her at arm’s length, her smile faltering as she takes in Rey’s appearance. “That you were...okay?”

Rey winces. She knows she looks a mess. She’s never been one to dress down. Even when she’s going for casual, she loves to coordinate her outfits. The fashion lover in her demands it. Nothing out of place, every piece of clothing clean, smooth and tucked into where it should be.

Except for tonight.

Her hoodie is the only one she owns, threadbare and permanently stained with grease from all the late nights in college when she ordered pizza. Her yoga pants aren’t much better, the black fabric spotted with rust colored bleach spots from a laundry mishap. And her hair...she‘s dreading combing through the gnarls, tangles, and what she’s pretty sure is dried snot. It’s even worse than the sex hair she’d had yesterday, back when—

Rey shakes her head, willing herself not to go down that line of thought again.

“I’m - fine. Just tired,” she manages to say.

“Bullshit, Rey,” Finn mutters.

“Finn!” The Ticos, Kaydel, and Jess say in unison, rounding on him to give him a verbal lashing.

“Oh come on, you four. I’m not going to stand here and beat around the bush.” He meets Rey’s eyes, his own radiating such concern that she feels close to tears already. “We all saw the news. And we wanted to be here for you. You don’t have to talk about it - ever. Any of it.” He holds up a bag of kettle chips. “But I brought chips. And movies. So...can we come in? Help take your mind off things?”

Rey looks over each of them. Finn’s not the only one who’s brought snacks. Paige has two bottles of wine, Jess is carrying a box of donuts, Rose has a bag of flaming hot Cheetos under one arm and Kaydel brought...

“Are those...tacos?”

Kaydel beams, urging Rey to take the still-warm styrofoam takeout box from her. “Yep! From your favorite food truck. They were still open when we swung by. It’s not the Taco Tuesday special but...still good. There's a side of hot sauce inside just how you like it.”

Rey hasn’t felt much like eating all day, not after she’d thrown up out of nerves driving home this morning. But her friends are all here, all of them armed with her favorite comfort foods. She can’t yet put into words how much their gesture means to her, not after the day she’s had. She’s too emotionally drained for that.

But she can invite them in.

She opens her door a little wider, doing just that.

\---

“I’ve never understood _why_ her friends are acting like her having this new career is a bad thing? Like, she works for the fictional equivalent of Anna Wintour, she gets to wear all these stunning designer clothes, the job is definitely a resume booster...but her friends are all so salty! I don’t get it. None of you would act that way towards me if someone like Kim Kardashian hired me as her personal hairstylist, right?” Rose grouses, gently tugging Rey’s hair this way and that. She’s miraculously tamed all the snarls into silky locks with just a few spritzes of detangler, and now she’s meticulously braiding Rey’s hair into french braids as they all watch _The Devil Wears Prada_.

“She needs to find better friends. And a better boyfriend. Anne Hathaway is too gorgeous to be stuck with the _Entourage_ guy.”

“Her name is Andy in this, Finn,” Rose corrects.

“Alright, Andy. But I mean, just look at her! Gorgeous. I love when women are curvy like that. It’s sexy as hell.”

The girls all groan at Finn’s comment, but Rey swears she can hear Rose’s breath hitch, and it pulls a small smile from her despite the circumstances.

Once she’s feeling better, once she’s able to pick herself up and get back to work - _if she still even has a place to work_ , she amends darkly - she’s going to nudge Rose and Finn together. There’s obviously a spark there, and it would be a shame if nothing ever came of it.

Her own love life may have just crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion, but that doesn’t mean she can’t help her friends find love, too.

Unbidden, her throat closes up in what she recognizes as the start of another round of tears. _Shit_. She shuts her eyes and just lets them fall this time, leaning her head back against Rose’s knee as everyone else carries on with their movie commentary.

Until a few minutes later, when a clatter of glass and a gasp from the kitchen disrupts it all.

Rey peers over her shoulder. Jess had been in the middle of refilling their wine glasses but now she’s looking out the window above the sink, the wine bottle forgotten on the counter.

“What’s wrong?” Kaydel asks, joining her in the kitchen. “Do you need help with the corkscrew? Don’t try it if you can’t do it, you’ll shoot your eye out. Let me—” She trails off once she comes into full view of the window too. “Who the hell is that?”

Warning bells go off in Rey’s head but she sits deathly still on the living room floor, watching as Finn, Paige, and then finally Rose huddle into her small kitchen, all of them craning their necks to get a look at what’s happening outside.

“Surely that’s...trespassing?”

“Climbing over an apartment complex’s gate? Uh, yeah, Rose. It’s trespassing,” Paige deadpans.

“Should we call someone? 911?”

“I mean, it’s almost 1 a.m. What non-threatening person pulls this shit at this time of night?” Kaydel whispers. She darts a quick glance over to Rey, wincing. “Rey? I hate to bring up the - the thing. That happened yesterday. It’s just - someone just scaled the fence near the apartment pool. Should we be concerned? Should _you_ be concerned? Or does that happen a lot here?”

That gets Rey’s full attention. In seconds she’s on her feet and crowding into the kitchen with the rest of them, standing on her tiptoes to see over Finn’s shoulder.

The pool is cloaked in darkness, but Rey can still make out the vague outline a person - a man, judging by his size - edging around its perimeter, clutching something behind his back. Is it another pap with a camera? A psycho with a gun?

“I bet he can’t see shit. It’s dark as fuck out there. LA smog working in our favor for once,” Finn whispers. “Should I go down there and see if I can take him?”

“No, Finn! No! Stay here. We can call security. Or the police,” Rose reasons.

“What do we say to the police, though? ‘There’s an absolute Yeti of a human being acting real suspicious down at the pool, send help?’ I don’t think this situation would rank high on LAPD’s list of priorities, even at this time of night.”

“They still have to dispatch someone, though.”

“Why are we all whispering?” Jess wonders aloud. “We’re four floors up and inside. Yeti can’t hear us.”

“...Good point.”

“Shh, look!”

They all stare, transfixed, as the trespasser picks up his pace once he’s nearing the pool’s exit—

Slips on what is probably wet concrete near one edge of the pool—

And promptly plants face first into the water.

“Oof. Hope he can swim,” Finn muses.

The pool’s underwater motion sensor lights turn on as the stranger comes back up for air. What appears to be a bouquet of flowers bobs up to the surface next to him and he makes a grab for it, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he does.

“Wait. Oh my God. Is that—?” Kaydel asks, but Rey has already backed away from the window, hardly believing what she’s seeing.

Everyone turns around to look at her, all of them now realizing the same thing, and Rey doesn’t know what to say.

So she just—

Picks up her apartment keys and pool pass from the little decorative dish on the kitchen counter where she keeps them, and—

Sprints out of her apartment, her friends following close behind her.

She stops to catch her breath when she’s inside the pool’s enclosure. Any lingering doubt about the identity of the person who climbed a fence to get into her apartment complex, the person who fell into the water with a splash big enough to make the entire pool’s surface ripple with waves—

It’s all gone in an instant.

It is, beyond a doubt, Ben Solo. Dressed in all black, dripping from head to toe, clutching an equally soaked bouquet of tulips in one massive hand.

He stares at her, not saying a word, and she doesn’t say anything back.

Behind them, Rey can hear all of her friends breathing as heavy as she is, winded from running. Finn, the bravest of the bunch, speaks first.

“Did he seriously track you down?”

Ben’s lip curls downward into the makings of a scowl, but he doesn’t once take his eyes from her. “Jesus, how many of them live here with you? I thought you lived alone.”

“We’re comforting her, asshole,” Rose pipes up.

He finally loses his temper, snapping out, “Well, go the fuck away!”

“Don’t talk to my friends like that!” Rey yells, surprising herself. It’s the first full sentence she’s said all night. All day, too. Her voice sounds hoarse from disuse and not nearly as commanding as she’d hoped.

But Ben listens. He blinks a few times, slumps his shoulders so he’s not so aggressively postured and then turns slightly to address her friends. “I’m sorry.” He pauses, his jaw working for a moment until he bites out, “ _Please_ go away. I need to speak to her in private.”

“We’re not going anywhere until Rey tells us to,” Kaydel says, sounding the most level-headed out of all of them. “Right?”

Everyone else murmurs their agreement. Rey shuts her eyes for a second and then huffs out a sigh, turning to face them. “It’s okay. Ben—” She stops, realizing that she’s never said his name around any of them before, just ‘Solo’. “Ben is fine. I’ll be fine.”

Finn isn’t convinced. “Rey. He just trespassed on private property to see you. That’s so extra. And creepy.”

Rey shrugs. “Yeah. I can handle it.”

“But—”

“Finn, please? I said I can handle it.”

Finn looks like he wants to press the issue further but he doesn’t, instead backing away. “Alright, well. Call us if you need anything?”

“I will. Can any of you drive?”

“Kaydel drove us here but I’ve only had half a glass. I can drive us back to her place,” Paige offers.

Rey nods, watching as her friends leave. She feels bad about cutting the night short but it’s probably best for everyone this way. Things are about to get awkward. Or painful. Both, probably. She’d rather not have an audience for this.

She turns back to face Ben, finding that he’s still staring at her.

“Ben.”

“Rey.”

They speak at the same time and then stop, waiting for the other to say something else. Rey decides to cut to the chase. Rip the bandage off. There isn’t a point in being anything but direct, not now.

“I thought I told you to forget about me and move on with your life.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been established that I don’t always listen to you. I couldn’t get a hold of you the easy way so I had to get creative.”

Rey crosses her arms. “Finding my address and showing up here in the middle of the night is your idea of creative?”

He doesn’t answer that, instead holding out the bouquet of flowers to her. “These are for you,” he says gruffly. “Sorry they’re wet.”

There’s a gentleness to his expression, a tenderness, and it turns her stomach into knots. She hesitates a few seconds more and then takes the flowers from him, holding them in her arms. “Ben—”

“Are they okay?” he interrupts.

“What do you mean?”

“The flowers.”

Rey glances down at the flowers and then back up to him. “Yes. They’re beautiful.” She clears her throat and then adds more softly, “Thank you.”

But that isn’t enough for him, clearly.

“No, I mean the colors. Do they...go together?”

Rey blinks. “Why does that matter?”

“Just - answer the damn question, Rey.”

“But—”

“Please?”

Rey squints to see the colors in the dim light of the pool lights. Pink, yellow, purple, and red tulips stare back at her, every last one of them gorgeous and perfectly bloomed.

“They’re lovely. Did you pick these out yourself?”

“I tried. The florist...she said they looked good but I still wasn’t sure.”

He’s a ball of nerves, she can tell, choosing to focus on whether the flowers are to her liking instead of getting to the crux of the issue.

Well, she’s not going to get distracted. Not by him, not by his words, not by how _good_ he looks in a leather jacket despite being soaking wet. Just... _no_. She has to stand her ground, even though that traitorous part of her, the part that wanted him to come here, is already begging her to change her mind.

“Why are you here, Ben?”

“I needed to see you.”

“Well, you can see me now. Satisfied?”

He takes a step towards her and then halts. “I missed you.”

Rey shakes her head. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both. This is all...too intense. Your life, your career. You. And I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t think I _can_ handle it.”

“I do. Be with me and we’ll figure it out.”

“It isn’t as simple as that! I have a job. I value my privacy. And I - I can’t go through what happened again. I was on the news, Ben. The news! For everyone to see. My boss, my co-workers, my friends. I’m beyond humiliated. And you - you punched someone. You broke his nose! And now it’s all everyone can talk about!”

“The fucker deserved it. They all did. They were harassing you!”

“That doesn’t justify beating his face to a pulp! What if he’d been severely injured? What then? What if you’d been arrested? What if you miss out on your Oscar nom because of all of that?”

Ben throws up his hands in frustration. “That doesn’t matter!”

“An _Oscar nomination_ doesn’t matter to you? Why?!”

“Because the only thing that matters to me is you!”

Rey just stands there, feeling foolish and entirely caught off guard. She can’t think of a cutting retort to that. She doesn’t _want_ to think of a cutting retort. The only thing she can think about is how passionate he sounds, how completely focused he is on her, how a pleasant sort of heat has replaced the knots in her stomach.

Ben takes another step forward, then another, until she can feel his body heat. How is it possible for someone to be _this warm_ after falling into a pool? It’s ridiculous. _He’s_ ridiculous.

But…

She loves him.

So much.

And she’s pretty sure he knows that, now. His eyes are soft as he takes her in, and when he reaches out to run his thumb along her jawline, she can’t suppress the shiver his touch sends through her, or her sharp gasp of breath.

“You matter to me, Rey. You do. And...I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to keep you. Quit my job. Quit acting. I’d be a useless actor, anyways, without the one person in my life who makes sense. You.”

She knows what he says is true, because every word fills her with a warm, golden glow that she can feel from the inside out, slowly replacing all of her doubts about this, all of her worries and fears.

“You’re it for me, Rey. You're it. No one else,” he tells her, leaning in to press his forehead to hers.

Rey sags against him, blinking away the tears she can feel pricking her eyes. “God. How can you be so sure?”

“I knew it from the moment I first met you.”

She has no words for that but she doesn’t need words, not anymore. She’s going to lead with her heart instead of her head for once.

Just like he does. Just like he’s taught her.

So she kisses him, softly, and forgets about everything else in the world but his lips against hers, if only for tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo. We're in the homestretch now, guys. Just one more chapter and an epilogue (I think...I hope LOL). Thank you all for being so supportive of this story, especially my fellow House Dadam members. I'd also like to thank the man the legend ADAM DRIVER for serving us some hot & fresh Cannes 2019 looks. All the new Cannes photos of him definitely motivated me to finish this chapter 💕
> 
> So...what do you all think happens next?? 😉 And why is Ben so pressed about those flowers? 💐🤔 Let me know in the comments!! xo
> 
> Shoutout to my friends [ReyloHalo](https://twitter.com/reylohalo) and [KeeBumbleBee](https://twitter.com/KeyBumbleBee) for reading this over for me and always providing the most encouraging feedback 😘
> 
> [Bespoke's Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1v52n3bAPjrfZ83ZJFvIwM).
> 
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/alfreylo). Come say hi!


	10. Chapter 10

\---

Ben hasn’t let her go since Rey initiated the kiss.

That was nearly ten minutes ago. 

Every time she tries to pull away, he crowds in on her and kisses her deeper, getting her clothes wet with his own, pushing her up against whatever surface her back happens to touch. The pool’s gate. One of the palm trees lining the parking lot. The brick walls of the apartment complex. The metal railing of the stairs leading back up to her apartment.

At this rate they’re never going to reach her place, and she wouldn’t put it past him to take her right here in the stairwell. It’s late at night and no one would probably see them, but she’s got to maintain some sort of decency. 

As if he can read her thoughts and is hellbent on proving her wrong, Ben’s hand slips beneath the waistband of her yoga pants.

“Ben!” she whispers fiercely, grabbing onto his wrist. If she had both of her arms free she’d be able to quite literally knock some sense into him, but she’s still holding onto the flowers, trying desperately not to squish the fragile blooms amidst all his aggressive kissing and groping.

“I love these pants on you. They hug your hips and peachy ass perfectly. Might be even better than your skirts. I could just roll them down and have my way with you now. Would you let me?” he says, frantically, his fingers edging towards the waistband of her underwear. 

“No! Now let go of me so we can go up these stupid stairs. I’m all the way on the fourth floor. You can touch me however you want once we’re in private but we’re not going to get there anytime soon if you keep this up.” She slaps his arm for emphasis. “Hands out of my pants. Now.”

He reluctantly obeys, only to hoist her up into his arms. 

“Oh my God, would you just—!” 

He silences her with a kiss again, pulling on her legs to wrap around his waist, but to his credit, he does start to climb the stairs. 

“Are you serious that I can touch you however I want?” he says against her lips. His hands go to her ass, cupping and groping her cheeks, making his meaning clear.

Rey’s head swims with the possibilities. She’s never, ever had anyone play with her ass or offer to. It’s never been particularly appealing to her, either. But imagining Ben pleasuring that part of her like he’s done to the rest of her body...it excites her, and makes her break out into a flush all over.

“Yes. I - I want you to touch all of me. Every part of me.”

“Yeah? You want me to touch your pretty little asshole and make it mine, too?”

The whine that Rey lets out in response to that is embarrassingly loud, but Ben greedily swallows her cries. He quickens his pace up the stairs with little effort, once again proving how impossibly strong and fit he is.

Rey, on the other hand, is already a breathless wreck.

She wrenches her mouth off his to catch her breath, her cunt throbbing when she sees the still irritated skin on his bottom lip where she’d bitten him. That bite seems like it happened a lifetime ago, even though it’s been a little bit over forty-eight hours. Since then she’s fallen in love, broken up, and then gotten back together with the man she swore up and down she hated.

What a mess. She’s a mess. He is, too. But together they’re an imperfectly wonderful kind of mess, the kind of mess that makes sense. The kind of mess that has the potential to turn into something beautiful if given enough time and trust. She realizes that now, and what’s more - she’s willing to try and make that happen.

She _wants_ it to happen.

The odds are stacked against them, and she’s still terrified of what dating someone with such a public career may hold.

Yet when he carries her in his arms, when he kisses her so thoroughly that butterflies never leave her stomach, she can’t help but feel safe. Secure. _Loved_. Hopeful that they can both make this work, and that things will turn out okay in the end.

“You’re smiling really big.”

Rey tries to school her features into a scowl and fails spectacularly. “Am not.”  

“You are. You like it when I carry you up the stairs like the proper little British princess you are, and you’re going to like it even better when I take your clothes off and fill your sweet little cunt up with my cock and my cum.”

He doesn’t bother to lower his voice for that last part. Rey claps her hand over his mouth, scandalized.

“You’re going to get me kicked out of my apartment building, you madman!”

He nips the palm of her hand, his eyes blazing. “Good. Then you can live with me.”

“God, Ben!”

She doesn’t get a chance to scold him about how presumptuous he is for suggesting that so early in their relationship, how cocky he is, how...how _ridiculous_ , because he’s pressed her up to a wall again, grinding against her.

“This - this is the second floor!” she gasps as he bites at her neck, then soothes it with heated kisses.

“So?”

“So I’m in 432! We’re not there yet. Keep going.”

“Mhmm, I am,” he says against her skin, but he doesn’t make any attempt to move.

Losing patience, Rey somehow manages to wrestle out of his arms this time, but she has a feeling it’s only because he allows it.

This is confirmed only seconds later when she starts to climb the stairs and he stops her, pulling her back against him by the hand.

“Did I say you could leave?”

“Oh my god, Ben, _come on_ \- ow!” He swats at her ass and Rey swats him right back with the bouquet of flowers, then pushes at his shoulder for good measure. “Can we please just _get to my place_ without you trying to cop a feel _?_ Please?”

He smiles, his eyes raking over her. “How about this. I’ll give you a running start to your apartment but if you haven’t unlocked it and gotten inside by the time I get to you, I _will_ fuck you where you are. I’m tired of waiting. Understand?”

She doesn’t have it in her to argue that _he’s_ the reason this has been drawn out for so long, or that racing up stairs in the middle of the night is a reckless idea. She’s so sexually frustrated, so tightly wound, so ready for him...she doesn’t even answer.

She just shoves the bouquet of flowers back into his arms to catch him off guard and sprints up the remaining flights of stairs, faster than she’s ever climbed them before.

Blood is pounding out a rhythm in her ears and her lungs are on fire as she reaches the fourth floor landing. But she pushes herself to keep going, to run faster down the hallway once she hears Ben’s footfalls below her, catching up.

Reaching her apartment door, Rey’s hands shake in anticipation as she tries to unlock it in time. Just out of the corner of her eye she can see Ben’s massive frame bound up the last few steps to the fourth floor.

She’s barely inside when he charges in after her, slamming the door after him and throwing her flowers on the kitchen counter. Then he’s immediately grabbing her, pulling her down with him onto the floor so she’s on her knees.

“I’m gonna fill you up so good. Hit the walls of you until you drip down my cock.”

“Oh my god, _Ben_ , oh my god!”

Rey can’t manage any words aside from those as he roughly yanks her yoga pants and underwear down to her thighs. She’s too excited from him chasing her, too winded, and she doesn’t stand of chance of regaining her breath when he slides home inside of her in one swift thrust.

“Fuck, you’re tight. _Fuck_. And so wet.”

He sets a punishing pace, his hands bruising her hips as he slams her back against him. She’s going to be sore all over again from this - not that the soreness from their past two days of sex has ever ceased. Her body is never going to catch a break, not if Ben insists on continually fucking her like a man possessed.

“Throw your hips back against me and fuck yourself on my cock. Show me. _Harder_. Good, good girl. God, you’re so fucking strong and it’s sexy as hell. _Harder_ , Rey.”

She obeys him, her mind reduced to the words he’s saying, the incredible friction of his cock inside her, the feeling of his rough jeans dragging along her bare skin.

She’s so close to coming. _So close_. He’s only just started to fuck her and she’s already hurtling towards the edge of what she can already tell will be one of her strongest orgasms yet.

Just a little - a _little_ bit more…

One of Ben’s hands leaves her hip and trails down the small of her back, to the cleft of her ass. He brushes a finger against her, not even delving inside just yet, but that’s all it takes for her to lose it.

“Oh, f-fuck baby, FUCK!” Ben shouts, his hips stuttering as she squeezes around him.

Rey’s vision whites out and she slumps forward on her forearms, toes curling, gasping for breath as the paralyzing strength of her climax hits. Ben’s own release follows just seconds after hers. Then they both collapse onto the floor, boneless and breathing heavy, as the aftershocks flow through their messy, half-clothed tangle of limbs.

\---

It takes awhile for them to return to their senses, and even longer for them to move from their position on the floor. Unsurprisingly, Rey can barely walk again; something Ben seems to take a weird sort of masculine pride in pointing out, she’s grown to realize. Soft murmurs about how exhausted she must be, how good he’s going to take care of her. Scooping her up into his arms like she’s as helpless as a kitten. She doesn’t mind it, though. Far from it. It appeals to some latent biological need to feel protected, to be provided for.

Bypassing her bedroom, he takes her into the bathroom. He strips her naked first, then himself, their pile of damp clothes left forgotten on the floor.

The shower starts innocently enough with him washing their bodies so they don’t smell so strongly of chlorine from the pool. But when he starts kissing her again, first on the mouth then progressively lower, it’s evident that their quick fuck was just the beginning of their night together.

Rey comes the second time on the shower floor, hands slipping from lack of purchase, while he eats her out from behind and shows her just how much he appreciates her ass.

And later, once they’re dried off and pressed to the soft sheets of her bed, he spoons her and fucks her slowly to her third climax, one of her legs pulled over his hip to deepen his thrusts.

This particular time is her favorite, because—

“I love you. I love you and I’m crazy about you,” Ben whispers, one of his arms cradling the underside of her breasts as he rocks against her. “Do you - do you feel the same way? About me?”

Rey turns in his arms so she can see him, never once breaking eye contact as he repeatedly hits the right spot within her, pulling her orgasm from her with each gentle press of his hips.

“You know I do.”

\---

Despite their bone deep exhaustion, neither of them fall asleep even after the third time. They’re too spent to do much else but kiss and hold each other but Rey loves it.

Just them, together, talking.

Ben opening up to her bit by bit, and Rey doing the same in return.

He learns that she never had a family that she could remember, moving from foster home to foster home. She started working as soon as she was legally able to, saving up as much money as possible to move to America and pursue a career in fashion. He listens attentively when she tells him about FIT, asking her questions, even though he’s adorably clueless about what a degree in fashion merchandising entails.

She learns that the school he attended as a teen wasn't a fancy private academy like her Google searches led her to believe, but a non-traditional therapeutic school for youth with anger management problems. It was here that he first got involved in theater. Although initially hesitant to follow in his parent’s footsteps, Ben found that acting helped him to channel his negative emotions into a positive outlet. After his acceptance to Juilliard, he decided to stay in New York and has called the city his home ever since. It’s his happy place, he explains, while LA makes him feel out of place and constantly on edge.

It definitely explains the discrepancy in his behavior when he’s in public versus when he’s with her. He’s an introvert who likes getting lost in a New York crowd and living a life of relative anonymity. Taking on the role of Kylo Ren has thrust him into the Hollywood spotlight, where actors are expected to be charismatic, effortlessly charming, and comfortable with attention even outside of their work. Everything that’s a struggle for him.

“It sounds exhausting, Ben. I’m sorry.” She kisses his cheek and he leans into it, sighing softly.

“I feel like an ass for complaining. I should be grateful. There are thousands of struggling actors out there who would give anything to be in my position.”

“You’re out of your element. It’s okay to feel lost and unhappy and it’s okay to talk about it.”

Ben turns to face her, his thumb brushing over her mouth. “I’m not lost or unhappy when I’m with you. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since my plane touched down in LAX a month ago.”

Rey smiles, at a loss of how to explain how touched she is by him saying that. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“Were you unhappy about not winning the Golden Globe?”

“It’s...complicated. The work itself is what matters most to me. Nominations are superfluous.”

“Still, it isn’t wrong to want recognition for your hard work. You’ve earned it.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Rey frowns. “You don’t think you’ve earned it?”

“I don’t know. Being on that Hollywood Reporter roundtable with all of those amazing actors really fucked with me. It was an incredible experience but I kept thinking, ‘what could I possibly contribute to this profession that they haven’t already?’ And the Globes just confirmed it. Yeah, I’m good at what I do, but if I’m up against someone playing Freddie fucking Mercury? I can’t compete with that.”

“Oh, Ben. You really don’t know how special you are,” she whispers. “When I saw _Starkiller_ , I was in awe of you. And I wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the audience lost their minds when Kylo killed president Snoke. I wish you could’ve seen it. You made everyone _side_ with Kylo. A cutthroat politician, a killer, a criminal. That takes talent, Ben. You’re so, so talented.”

Ben scoffs. “You’re one to talk.”

“It’s not the same. You left an impact on millions of people. I’m just someone who loves clothes and loves dressing people up in them.”

He gathers her into his arms, kissing the tip of her nose. “Stop downplaying what you do.”

“I will if you do.”

“Mine’s incurable. Too many insecurities. You don’t strike me as insecure. You’re a badass, take-no-shit stylist and you know it.”

“But—”

“Rey. You’re amazing. I won’t hear any different.”

Rey blushes from his praise. “There are other stylists working for Maz. They would have done just as good of a job dressing you - and would’ve been _way_ more cooperative while doing so. Told you everything you wanted to hear.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“In a city full of Yes Men like this, I need someone who’s going to be straight with me. That’s why I...kind of overreacted that day when you talked about ending the contract.”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “‘Kind of’?”

“Alright, fine, I overreacted a lot. I didn’t want to lose you so I panicked.”

“Couldn’t get enough of me picking fights with you in the middle of department stores?”

Ben laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Rey’s breath catches at the sight.

“God, you made me furious that day. But in such a good way. You aren’t afraid to get up in my face. No one does that.”

“Clearly. Well, I’ll happily keep browbeating you whenever your attitude or outfits are atrocious, if that’s what gets you all hot and bothered.”

He grabs a fistful of her ass. “Little brat.”

Rey smirks. “Who knows, maybe even someday I can convince you to branch out to actual colors instead of black. I really think you’d like them if you tried them.”

He grows quiet at that, the smile disappearing from his face.

She reaches up, brushing his hair from his forehead. “Hey. You okay? What did I say?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It can’t be nothing. You look upset.”

“It’s...embarrassing. Stupid.”

“What is it?”

He worries at his bottom lip for a moment, obviously struggling to say what’s on his mind. She opens her mouth to apologize, change the subject, do anything to recover his relaxed mood, but he finally gets out:

“I’m color blind.”

Rey blinks. Of all the things she expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them.

“Oh. So…”

“So reds and greens look the same to me. Purples and blues are hard to differentiate too. It makes dressing a struggle, hence the black. Black is black, no matter how fucked your vision is.”

Guilt builds in her stomach when she remembers their fight in Barneys. Her throwing that red sweater at him and misinterpreting what he said. At the time she’d thought he was being purposefully difficult.

_‘I don’t like green.’_

Except the sweater _had_ been green to his eyes. He’d tried to tell her and she hadn’t listened.

Then there was the incident with the Louboutin oxfords. She’d complained about him behind his back to Jess and Kaydel, finding it ridiculous that someone could be so opposed to a little bit of red on the sole of an otherwise beautiful and high end black shoe.

And then the flowers from tonight.  He’d been so unsure, wanting to hear from her whether they ‘went together’.

Because he truly couldn’t _see_ if they did.

She’s absolutely horrified with herself at how - how _inconsiderate_ she must’ve seemed to him in the weeks leading up to the Golden Globes. How rude. How cruel. She feels like a disappointment to her entire profession, honestly. _How_ could she have not realized the colorblindness sooner?

“Ben, I’m — I am _so_ sorry.”

He bristles. “I don’t want you to pity me.”

“It’s not pity! I feel like a terrible person for being mean to you about the all-black thing. All this time I thought it was a weird personality quirk or something, and I was too much of an ass to even consider an alternate explanation. I don’t know what I _can_ do at this point, but - please tell me there’s some way I make it up to you?”

Ben shakes his head. “Baby, no. You - you didn’t know. It was entirely my fault that I never explained. I don’t tell a lot of people.” He swallows, huffing out a breath. “I used to get so mad at myself when I was younger, so fucking angry and sad that I was different. And the bullying didn’t help. There were these two kids in art class - let’s just say it got so bad, I would purposely make myself sick so I didn’t have to participate. And that was just in elementary school. The resentment got even worse as I got older. My mom had to pick out my outfits until I was sixteen. I didn’t drive until I was twenty because I was scared I’d get into a wreck at stoplights. Christmas is always a vomit colored nightmare for me.”

Rey laces her fingers together with his, squeezing gently. Ben squeezes hers back.

“But you know what’s even worse than Christmas lights or traffic stops? I’ll never be able to see just how red your mouth is, or what shade your blush looks like, how pink you turn when I make you come—” He cuts off, sounding on the verge of tears. Rey pulls him closer, wishing that she could take all the pain away from that small boy who couldn’t tell his colors apart and learned to hate that about himself.

“Ben. It’s okay.”

“You know what? It is. It is okay. Because, in spite of how shitty it makes my life sometimes...you’re the only person who has made me forget I even have it, Rey. When I’m with you, everything - all the negativity, all the bullshit, all the anger - it just goes away. You make me excited about life and things in it. Before you, that was a rarity. You’re so good for me, Rey. So good. I love you and I want you in my life. Tell me you'll stay? With me. No more running away. We can figure this out, Rey. Together.”

Rey pours every once of love she can into the kiss she gives him, every piece of her soul he hasn’t already claimed.

Because she's made up her mind. Completely. She's in love with a colorblind, mercurial, incredibly talented actor and overall disaster of a human being named Ben Solo, and nothing is going to change that now. 

"Yes. Together." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go and then we'll be done, loves! 😭 I can hardly believe it!
> 
> So...who figured out Ben was colorblind before he admitted it? I left several heavy hints throughout and I also purposely kept the moodboards black and white to symbolize Ben's aversion to color and his "bleak" life before Rey came in. The moodboard in Chapter 9 with that BRIGHT pop of color from the flowers served as a turning point, and the red-green filter for this chapter's moodboard does too. Next chapter may even be in FULL color, who knows 😉 (Sidenote, did you know that people who are red-green colorblind have trouble seeing blushes? I had NO IDEA so when I came across that in my research I knew I wanted to add in something about it). 
> 
> As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this story and letting me know what you think about it. I can hardly put into words how much your comments, kudos, and just overall support and love for this fic mean to me 💞 Thank you thank you THANK YOU!! 
> 
> P.S. [SithSpence](https://twitter.com/SithSpence) is an INCREDIBLY talented Kylo Ren voice actor who has recorded a line from Chapter 4 of Bespoke (aka, the chapter when Ben and Rey get it on for the first time). [Check out his soundboard here](https://peal.io/soundboards/kylo-ren-ben-solo-51c43ff0-7371-4475-aacc-377dda06f001). "Under my skin" is the one that is from Bespoke. Thank you Spencer for all that you do for us Reylos!! 😘


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the updated tags this chapter. It features a specific kink that may not be your cup of tea. Skip the end of the final sex scene if you'd like to avoid it. Thanks!

\---

Rey wakes up to the smell of pancakes. 

One big, long stretch of her limbs confirms that she’s alone in bed, no longer entangled in Ben’s embrace. She misses it already. She misses _him_. 

But she doesn’t have to miss him anymore, not when he’s still here. In her apartment. Cooking her breakfast. 

Rey buries her face into her pillow, smiling. 

 _Ben Solo_ is cooking her breakfast. 

Yes. By some strange twist of fate, this is her life now, and it’s going to continue being her life. Now in the light of day, she feels even more certain than she did last night about Ben, about their life together. It’ll take a lot of getting used to, and it’s not going to be easy, but she’s never been happier. 

Not bothering with clothes, Rey leaves her bed and follows her nose to the kitchen. She finds an equally naked Ben stooped over the stovetop, spatula in hand as he waits for a pancake to brown on one side. There’s already a small pile of them on a plate next to the stove, all perfectly golden brown. The sweetest thing of all, though, is what’s sitting on the window ledge above the sink: the flowers from last night, now in a vase she’d forgotten she owns, the brightly colored blooms soaking up the sun. 

Truth be told, Rey has never been a morning person. She hates waking up and would sleep in each day till noon if she could. 

But if this is what mornings for her will be like from now on, well...they’re about to become her favorite part of the day. 

Resisting the urge to snatch a pancake off the plate to eat plain, Rey comes up behind Ben, wrapping her arms around his torso. 

“Cooking while naked?” she asks, pressing a kiss to the smooth, freckled skin of his shoulder blade.

“You know I like to live dangerously when it comes to you. I almost drowned last night. Or did you forget?”

“That pool is five feet deep at most and you’re roughly the size of an tree-ent.”

He laughs softly at that. “Brat. You hungry?”

“Yes please. Smells awesome. I didn’t even know I had ingredients for pancakes.”

“You had eggs but no flour or sugar so I used oatmeal and bananas.”

“What, seriously?” Rey peers around him to inspect the pancake closer. Sure enough, she can make out small chunks of banana in the bubbling batter. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Ben shrugs. “My dad’s allergic to gluten so my mom has always made them this way.” 

This is only the second time he’s mentioned his parents aside from last night when he told her he was colorblind. She has no idea if he has a good relationship with them or not, but she does remember what Maz told her when Rey first took Ben on as a client. 

 _His parents are lovely. Both a pleasure to work with. Leia’s an old friend, so is Han_ _._

And with no family of her own to speak of, Rey would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about the two people who raised this complicated man she’s so quickly grown to love. 

“What are they like?”

“My parents?”

“Yeah.”

Ben flips the pancake over, pausing as he considers his words. “They’re...loud. Overwhelming. Nosy. But surprisingly normal, considering who they are. And way more normal compared to me.”

“I hate to break this to you but you’re surprisingly normal too. You’re a bit of a basic bitch, to be honest.” 

Ben spins around at that, pointing the spatula at her accusingly. “You take that back.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Ben. You’re making gluten free pancakes.”

“So?”

“So that’s basic.”

“I’ll show you how not-basic I can be.” His eyes take on a playful gleam as he pulls her flush against him, nuzzling the side of her neck. 

“You’re going to burn the pancakes!”

“Let them burn. Burn this entire place down. It’s already been established you’re moving in with me anyway, Jackson.”

Rey sighs, reaching around him to shut off the stove and move the pan off the heat. “About that. We need to set boundaries first. Rules. All jokes aside...I’m _really_ serious about this, Ben. I want this to work. And for it to work, we need to have a strong foundation. Does that make sense?” She brushes a lock of his hair from his face and finds him staring at her intently, taking in her words.

“I told you last night and I still mean it. I’m crazy about you and I’m going to do everything I can to make this okay. If you told me to quit acting I’d do it. If you told me to move out to California full-time I’d do it. In a heartbeat.”

Rey shakes her head. “I appreciate the sentiment but I don’t want you to change your entire life around for me. I don’t think that would make you happy.”

“I’m happy if _you’re_ happy. So what will make that happen for you?”

She bites her lip, choosing her words carefully. “Let’s take our time. Enjoy each other’s company in and outside of the bedroom. Get to know each other, _really_ know each other. Is that okay?”

Ben smiles softly. “More than okay. What’s next?”

“Let’s table discussions about moving in until the award season is over and our lives are a little bit less hectic.”

“Done. What else?”

“No more borderline creepy stuff like finding my address. How _did_ you find it, by the way?”

Ben winces. “Shit. I forgot about that. You’ll probably want to talk with your boss soon.”

“Maz?! _Maz_ gave you my address?”

“I was desperate.”

“You were—? _Ben_! That’s my _boss_. And you - what? Called her?”

He twirls the spatula in one of his giant hands, avoiding her gaze. “Showed up there, actually.” 

“You _showed up_ to Maz’s office to casually ask for my home address? Are you insane?”

“I haven’t been formally assessed since I was a teen but probably, yeah.”

Rey grabs the spatula from him, placing it out of reach so he’ll stop fidgeting with it. “Not funny.”

“Sorry. Do you want me to talk to her instead of you? I could explain the situation and—” 

Rey rubs her hands down her face. “Nope, nope, absolutely not. I need to handle that. It’s my job, my boss, my problem. But I just - you - you’re ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! Do you know that?”

“Yep. I do. And I’m sorry for things I do that are irrational and ‘borderline creepy’, as you put it. I’m going to try hard to make it up to you. I promise you that.” He worries at his bottom lip for a moment and then reaches for the pancake plate on the counter, holding it out to her. “Pancake?”

Rey stews for a few seconds more until she relents and takes the topmost pancake, biting into its warmth. She has to suppress a moan when cinnamon and banana hit her taste buds.

“Well?” Ben asks.

“I hate how I can’t stay mad at you. And I hate how _good_ these taste without syrup. Gluten free pancakes shouldn’t taste this good without syrup. What the fuck,” she grumbles. 

“They’re not so basic now, are they?” He takes her half-eaten pancake from her and finishes it, continuing on talking with his mouth full. It _really_ shouldn’t be endearing, but to Rey it is. “Now, back to this list of yours. Is there anything else you can think of? So far you’ve given me surprisingly easy ways that I can make you happy as your boyfriend.”

 _Boyfriend_ _._  

Rey has never had a proper boyfriend before, much less a boyfriend who makes her breakfast in the morning. A boyfriend who risks his public image and attacks a swarm of paparazzi to protect her. A boyfriend who scales over gates and falls into pools to bring her flowers.

“Is that what you are to me? My boyfriend?” she asks, her voice embarrassingly breathless to her ears.

Ben swallows his last bite of pancake and then leans down, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “If you want me to be.”

“I do. I want that. And…” Seizing her chance, she lists the one other thing that she can think of, the next step that she’d like to take with him. “And as your girlfriend, I also want to meet your parents at some point. That’s it. That’s my last request. You kind of owe me for the Maz thing, so—” 

“Alright.”

Rey blinks. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. That was the one thing she was anticipating him to push back on. “Alright?”

Ben shrugs. “I’ll call them as soon as I get a new phone.”

“What happened to your old one?”

“Died a watery death last night in the pool. Now eat your breakfast. You’ll need the energy.”

“For what?” 

Ben pulls her against him again, rougher this time, and her stomach flips as she feels his hot, hardening cock pressing against her front. “For when I put you up on this kitchen counter, spread your legs, and eat your pretty cunt until my face is drenched.”

“Oh.” 

He smirks. “Consider it part of my apology the Maz thing.” 

“Consider the apology accepted if you do a good enough job of it,” she tries to sass back, but it comes out tremulous and weak. Because the _look_ he’s giving her is already making her core throb with need. His eyes darken as he cages her in with his arms, and Rey already knows she’s in for a ride with his next words. 

“Fuck your breakfast. Get on the counter. Now.”

Rey bruises her ass on the counter’s edge with how fast she hastens to obey.

\---

Ben’s publicist Gwen Phasma and his manager Hux aren’t happy that he hasn’t been reachable by phone, but they’ve already drafted a publicity statement in his absence. It is purposely vague aside from a request for privacy and an apology for his ‘combative behavior’ towards the paparazzi. Absolutely no comments about his love life. She hates that he has to apologize in the first place but as a whole, the statement works just fine for Rey. Ben grudgingly agrees, although she hears him mutter at one point that he’d issue a public ‘leave me and my girlfriend the fuck alone’ if he could. 

Ben spends every bit of free time that he can with her, which means more to Rey than she can put into words. In lieu of driving his not-so-subtle black Mercedes Benz to and from her place, he Ubers to a nearby neighborhood and walks the rest of the way like he had the night of the Pool Incident, as she’s taken to calling it. He’s careful every time he leaves, always wearing shades and a baseball cap to avoid detection. Paired with the publicity statement, this turns out to be surprisingly effective in keeping a low profile. Aside from the occasional hashtag from deluded fans, all gossip concerning Ben reaches a standstill. It becomes old news, replaced with Kardashian drama and Oscar predictions, and Rey finds she can rest a little bit easier each day. 

Still, she knows that she can’t hide out in her own little world forever, planning her days around which Netflix show to start next or what to have for dinner. She still has a job to answer to...maybe. Hopefully? Maz _had_ given Ben her address, but that doesn’t mean her boss isn’t royally pissed at her. She needs to find out for sure. So after her fourth day spent at home, she works up the courage to call Maz and schedule a meeting. 

The office is still empty when she arrives the following Monday, which she is thankful for. If, worst case scenario, she’s fired on the spot and has to pack up her desk, she’d rather not have to do it with Jess, Kaydel, or any other work friends in close proximity. 

Maz is already waiting for her, and gestures Rey into her office with a distracted handwave, not looking up from her computer screen. Willing herself to keep calm, Rey closes the door behind her and takes a seat in one of the trendy turquoise chairs across from Maz’s equally trendy desk. As she waits for Maz to speak first, she’s hit with a strong feeling of déjà  vu; not even a month ago she’d been in this exact situation, convinced that she was losing her job. Last time she had been wrong, but now…

Rey bites her lip, pulling at her pencil skirt. 

She’s pretty sure ‘fucking your client’ is at the very top of the “How To Fuck Up As A Stylist” list, and she’s gone and done exactly that. A lot. She’s fucked Ben Solo more times than she can count. She has an embarrassing amount of hickeys and sore body parts to show for it. 

And she hasn’t just fucked him, either. No. She’s now in a full-blown _romantic relationship_ with him and while she’s happy with this decision, she knows it is...not a good look, professionally speaking. It doesn’t reflect well on her, and it doesn’t reflect well on Kanata Styling, either. 

A week ago, even a few days ago, Rey couldn’t fathom a life without this job. Now, she can’t fathom a life without Ben. She understands now why he’d been so willing to uproot his entire life for her. Choosing love over a career may be impulsive. But it feels...right. She’s exactly where she needs to be, and that’s with Ben. If that means getting fired and having to start afresh somewhere else, she’ll live with it. And what’s more, she’ll be happy. Disappointed at first, yes. But the disappointment will fade. The happiness that she feels with Ben? That’s going to stay with her for a very long time. A _lifetime,_ if things keep going right. That’s what she has to look forward to. 

“So,” Maz finally breaks the silence, looking up at Rey. She folds her hands under her chin, her many colorful bracelets clanging against each other. 

Rey takes a steadying breath in and then lets it out, slowly. She can do this. “So?”

“When’s the wedding?”

Oh, _fuck_.

“I-I—” Rey splutters, then stops. 

Maz just blinks at her behind her glasses, her face blank. 

“I’m - I’m sorry. For this. For what you might’ve seen on the news or online. About me. About Be - _Solo_. When he became my client, I never - _ever_ _-_   anticipated any of this would happen.” 

Maz is silent for another uncomfortably long stretch of time, to the point that Rey starts wishing for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. 

And then…

Then Maz’s weathered face spreads into a grin. 

“I saw it coming.” 

“...What?” 

“His mother reached out to me over email at first, and then we met to discuss how we could whip her son’s unfortunate fashion choices - and his attitude - into shape in time for the award season. You were my first choice for the job. Know why?” 

Rey shakes her head, at a loss for words. 

“You remind me of when I first started out, just out of ESMOD in Paris. You’re friendly, agreeable, some would say reserved...but spirited and determined when it counts. And Ben needed someone who fit that bill. Someone with a ‘firm hand’, if I recall Leia’s words correctly. In short, someone like you. I expected that he would quickly learn not to underestimate you, that he would come to respect you...and that he might even be taken with you. From the way he charged into my office the other night like a man possessed, all but demanding your address, I was right on the money about that last thing in particular, was I not?” 

Rey can feel a blush spread along her cheeks and creep down to her neck. “...Yes?” 

Maz nods sagely. “Mhm. So I ask again: when’s the wedding?” 

Oh, God. She’s serious. Completely serious.

Rey looks around the office, helplessly, as if the art prints on the walls could possibly help her figure out how to answer this incredibly awkward question. 

“I - We - we haven’t...discussed that. We may never. It’s - way too soon,” Rey admits quietly, trying not to squirm in her seat under Maz’s close scrutiny. 

“That’s a pity,” Maz sighs, taking off her glasses and setting them on her desk, leveling Rey with an even more serious look. “Well, if and when a wedding _does_ happen...I fully expect an invitation _and_ a front row seat. I won’t settle for anything less as your stylist.”   

Rey’s jaw drops. “Are you...for real?” 

“Quite.” Maz stands from her chair to rifle through her oversized purse that’s nearly as big as her, switching her regular glasses out for a pair of white Chanel sunglasses. Vintage, if Rey had to guess. “Now, have you eaten yet? There’s a new breakfast place that just opened up around the corner and I heard they serve boysenberry waffles until ten. Have you ever had Boysenberry?”

“I—”

“Oh, Rey, you _must_ _._ It’s like a raspberry and blackberry mixed together. Just wonderful. How about it? No one else is in the office yet so we might as well.” 

It’s hard for Rey to wrap her head around how...how _unphased_ Maz is acting about all of this. Rey had been certain upon walking in that Maz would fire her ass. Instead, she’d invited herself to Rey’s possibly-future wedding? And now she’s following that strange conversation up by suggesting they grab waffles?? This is more unsettling than if Maz had gone ahead and ripped her a new one, and it’s only adding to the utter absurdity of this past week. 

Because honestly, what _real_ person does all of this happen to? Last time Rey checked, she’s not the plucky heroine in some B-movie romcom or x-rated Kylo Ren fanfiction. She’s Rey. An average, normal person. Yet here she is, thrust into a decidedly not average, far from normal new life - all because of a very big, very moody actor that she now calls her boyfriend.

“You coming, sunshine?” Maz asks. 

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Rey scrambles out of her chair to hurry after Maz, who is halfway out the door already. 

“Maz? I...don’t think I fully understood you just now. Am I - um - fired? Are you not mad at me? Because—” 

“Darling.” Maz stops, turns back around, and pulls on Rey’s forearm so she bends down to her height. Then she _lovingly_ pats Rey’s cheek like she’s her child. “We’ve all done questionable things for tall men with large appendages. It’s going to be okay. But _do_ try to keep your love life separate from your work from now on, hm? I’d rather not have my employees on a gossip website every week.” 

Rey cringes, straightening up to her full height again. “That’s...yeah. Never going to happen again if I can help it.”  

“And I’d _very much like_ for Ben Solo not to charge in here like an angry rhinoceros anytime soon.” 

“Got it. That’s been handled already.” 

“I’m sure it has. To curtail any further issues, I think it’s best if we reassign him to another stylist. No more conflicts of interest.”

Rey nods. She expects that Ben will be less than enthused about a new stylist, but she’s fairly confident she can prime him and whichever poor soul gets to dress him for the rest of the award season. “That sounds good.”

Maz claps her hands together. “Excellent. Then it’s settled. Now...waffles?” 

Rey breathes an enormous sigh of relief. “Sure. Waffles.” 

\---

 

 

_One week later_

January 21st. 

For most people, this day isn’t significant. 

Just another Monday. 

For Ben, it’s one day before the Oscar nominations. His nervous energy has been palpable all day, although he has tried to hide it in every way he can. Morning sex. A morning run, which he had come back from only to give Rey _more_ morning sex. Hiking the lesser-known trails in Griffith Park. Willingly swinging by Whole Foods to pick up ingredients to make her shrimp tacos for dinner, even though Rey knows by now that he _hates_ Whole Foods with a fiery passion and doesn’t really like shrimp, either. 

Rey stays in the car when he goes in, not wanting to attract attention. When Ben comes back not even five minutes later, grocery-less and looking considerably more stressed than when he went in, she knows something is wrong. 

“Babe?” she asks. 

Ben flops himself into the driver’s seat with a grunt, slams the car door shut, and leans forward onto the steering wheel, lightly banging his head against it. He does this several times, each successive bang harder. Rey has to intervene after the fourth one and pull his head back, worried that he’ll hit the car horn and alert everyone in this very crowded parking lot to their presence. 

“Ben. What is it?” 

“My dad called,” he groans. 

Rey frowns. “Is that...bad? Is he okay?” 

“He tipped me off that my mom is rescheduling next week’s dinner.” 

“Oh - that’s okay! I know I said I really wanted to meet them both, and don’t get me wrong, I still really do, but I’m flexible. We can meet them whenever. I won’t be disappointed if plans change.” 

“He said she wants to reschedule it to _tonight_. _”_

Now Rey understands the upset. It’s really short notice and Ben’s already on-edge. He’d wanted a quiet and lazy night-in like they usually do. A dinner with his parents, no matter how nice they end up being, probably isn’t what Ben had in mind. 

“We could - just go for an hour or two? Would she be offended if we left early? Maybe if you explained—” 

“No, that - that won’t work.” Ben runs a hand down his face. “Maybe if it was just my mom and dad, but...he told me that my entire extended family is in town. Because…” He huffs out a long, drawn-out sigh, looking physically pained. “Because instead of dinner, my mom is throwing a party where everyone stays up to watch the Oscar nominations when they air tomorrow at five in the fucking morning. A party, Rey. For me. When she knows I fucking hate that shit.” 

Rey tries her hardest to bite back her smile. She knows that she needs to approach this delicately for Ben’s sake, even though she secretly finds it _adorable_ that he has relatives coming from out of town to celebrate his success. Plus, frankly, she’s excited. An extended family is something that she’s only dreamed of having. Now that she knows that Ben has one, she wants to meet them all. Any grandparents, aunts or uncles, cousins. _Everyone_ _._

“How...big is your extended family, exactly?” Rey asks. 

“Fuck, I don’t even know. Because when I say ‘extended’ family, what I actually mean is blood relatives _and_ close family friends. And my parents have a fuck ton. Like...when I was little I thought I had _three_ different uncles, only to find out when I was older that just one of them is actually related to me. It’s a giant Solo-Organa-Skywalker-Calrissian-Bacca trainwreck, Rey. And I am... _so_ sorry that this is going to be your first impression of my family because...Jesus Christ. It’s a lot. They’re a lot.” 

Rey pats his back sympathetically, holding back a laugh. “It’s okay, babe. I think I can handle it.” 

Because if being with Ben Solo has taught her anything, it’s that she can most definitely handle ‘a lot’.  

\---

Although, in hindsight, it turns out that not even Rey could have prepared herself for the sheer overwhelmingness that is Ben’s family. 

For starters, the Solos live in a literal mansion. Rey knew they were incredibly wealthy; they’re movie stars, after all, but that prior knowledge does nothing to help contain her awe once Ben drives past the gates to enter the property. It’s a huge, sprawling Mediterranean-style estate with a sweeping view of the Los Angeles skyline and San Gabriel mountains. The actual house itself is beautifully made, with the red tile roof, stucco exterior and large windows making it seem inviting and cozy, despite its enormous size. 

Leia and Han Solo are waiting for them when Ben pulls to the front driveway that is already packed with cars. He barely manages to get formal introductions in before Leia engulfs them both in a hug, peppering them with questions. Then she all but drags them inside where they’re greeted by more family. Thirty people, easily. Ben’s uncle Luke Skywalker, who Rey finds out co-owns a foster and adoption organization with the Solos and his wife Mara Jade, has _eight_ adopted children of various ages. Ben’s other two “uncles”, Charlie Bacca and Lando Calrissian, also have families in attendance. Rey greets everyone and tries to remember names as best as she can, but this proves to be a lost cause as the evening progresses and even _more_ guests arrive. 

“Dinner” turns out to be a feast of epic proportions. Even though the Solo villa has a spacious dining room that is bigger than the entirety of Rey’s apartment, only a fraction of everyone can fit into the space and eat there. Other guests congregate in the kitchen, the family room, and the outdoor pavilion, where every available surface is laden with food and drinks. Despite her best efforts to sample all the different kinds of finger food, entrées, desserts and cocktails that she can get her hands on, Rey’s stomach is uncomfortably full not even an hour into the party. 

After dinner comes a toast by Han and Leia for Ben. Rey can tell he doesn’t enjoy the attention; as everyone raises their glasses and cheers for him, his ears redden and he scowls in that adorable, distressed way of his. She vows then and there to find an opportune time to get him alone so they can enjoy some peace and quiet. 

Around midnight, everyone gathers into the home theater - yes, a home theater, as if the house wasn’t lavish enough without one - to watch _Starkiller,_ even though it’s not out on DVD yet. Rey takes this as her cue to steal Ben away. He hates watching himself on camera, and she knows his mood will only get worse if he’s forced to sit through the entire thing. As the movie starts on a cold open anachronistic scene of a bloodied Kylo Ren sprawled across a lawn, the White House in flames behind him, Rey excuses herself to the first bathroom she can find.

 

**[Outgoing - 12:15am]**

_Want to escape w/ me?_

 

**[Ben❤️ - 12:15am]**

_Fuck yes._

 

**[Outgoing - 12:15am]**

_If you need an excuse tell your parents I wasn’t feeling well. Meet me by the pool :)_

 

**[Ben❤️ - 12:16am]**

_Which one?_

 

**[Outgoing - 12:16am]**

_...There’s more than one?_

 

**[Ben❤️ - 12:16am]**

_If you know where to look._

\---

“How do you get used to...this? All of this?” Rey asks, gesturing around them.

He’s taken her to a smaller guest house with a pool on the edge of the property, nestled in a patch of trees past the golf course. The fact that the Solos even _have_ a guest house and a golf course is...well. To be honest, the casual luxury she’s been exposed to all evening is intimidating as hell. 

Rey grew up in foster care, never having her own room, new clothes, new toys, not even new supplies for school. Everything was given to her second-hand, and it’s taken Rey years to get to a place where she doesn’t feel guilty about buying new things. But this amount of wealth...it’s beyond anything she’s ever encountered, and in spite of the excitement she had about meeting his family, she now feels...really, really poor. 

Ben sighs as he sits down by the edge of the pool beside her. “You don’t get used to it. I grew up in Beverly Hills and it still feels fucking weird.” He’s silent for a time as Rey dips her feet into the cold water. When he speaks again, his voice sounds smaller, more uncertain. “Do you...feel different about me, now?”

The question, so hesitantly asked, makes her think that this same conversation has happened before. That someone in his past - maybe a girlfriend, maybe just a friend - told him that his wealth changed their opinion of him. 

But that isn’t the case for Rey. 

Despite his famous parents, despite the Beverly Hills mansion, despite the cars, the five course meals, the home movie theater, the golf course, the guest house...he’s still the same Ben she fell for. His _world_ is intimidating. He isn’t. He may have seemed so when she first met him, but that was before she knew him, truly knew him. She knows who he is now, the man behind the actor named Ben Solo, and she loves every part of him. 

So she tells him this.

It’s dark out so she can’t fully see his reaction, but she hears his sharp intake of breath. And she feels when he pulls her into his arms, when he kisses her softly on the lips. 

“You’re the best person I’ve ever met, Rey. I love you so fucking much.” 

She can’t articulate how full her heart is, how _special_ he consistently makes her feel. How his words, so earnestly spoken, more than make up for any feelings of inadequacy she’s had this evening. 

But she can _show_ him. 

“Make love to me?” 

He clings to her even tighter at that, his hands traveling down to grasp at her ass. “Fuck, baby. _Yes_ _._ Where?” 

“The pool.” 

“ _This_ pool?” 

“We’re already here, aren’t we?”

Rey stands up, taking both of their phones and placing them _well_ out of reach of the water, mindful of what happened to Ben’s phone when he fell into her apartment pool. Then she pulls her red maxi dress up and over her head, doing the same with her bra and underwear only seconds later. 

Ben sits there, staring up at her in the darkness, like he’s forgotten what he was about to say. “The - the temperature controls aren’t automatic in this one so the water is really cold.” 

“So?” 

“So I don’t want you freezing. Let me just go and turn the heating on. It’ll only take a few minutes—”

She jumps into the water before he can change her mind. 

It’s fucking frigid. 

Rey breaks the surface, gasping as the shock of the cold water enters her system. “Fuck!”

“I did warn you.” 

She tries to splash water in his direction but he’s now out of range, still comfortably dry and not freezing. “G-get in here and warm me up!” 

“Always so bossy. Maybe if you ask nicely?” 

She’s too desperate to argue. “P-please get in here and warm me up?” 

“Hm...actually, no, I don’t think I will.” 

“Ben!” 

He backs up towards the end of the pool deck, like he’s about to leave her stranded in the water naked, her entire body covered in goosebumps…

Then he breaks into a run and launches himself fully clothed into the pool, his canonball making waves so huge that one smacks her in the face. 

“B-Ben! Oh my god!” she laughs, her teeth chattering. “W-what is it with you and getting nice clothes wet?” 

He swims over to her, gathering her into his strong arms. “At least it isn’t a bespoke suit or leather jacket this time.” 

He has a point. Today she’d convinced him to wear a nice pair of beige chinos and a (blue!) polo that she’d bought for him last week. Neither will be significantly damaged, and the outfit isn’t nearly as expensive as some of his others are. Still, she’s going to teach him to take proper care of his wardrobe one of these days…

Underneath the water, she can feel Ben’s hot hand slide between the folds of her pussy, finding her clit with practiced ease. 

Yeah, she’ll teach him eventually. Just...not today. Not now. They have more important things to do. 

“You looked so fucking hot tonight in your dress. _I_ should’ve been the one to take it off of you, sweetness.” His thumb grazes her clit _just right_ and Rey gasps again, though not from the cold water this time. 

“You missed your - ah! - missed your chance back there.”

He nips at her neck, his teeth scraping against her skin. “Little brat. Didn’t even let me get you out of your _panties_.”

“ _Shush_.” 

“Not a chance.” 

He slides a finger into her cunt and crooks it, dragging the pad of his finger along the front walls of her in a way that makes Rey involuntarily buck against him. 

“ _Fuck_ _,_ Ben.” 

“Tell me, baby. What do you want?” 

“I want you. Inside of me.” 

He adds another finger, thrusting into her insistently. “I am inside of you.” 

He fills her so good every time, his thick fingers stretched around her walls. But it isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Over the past month he’s made her unbelievably greedy, always wanting more of him, her insides aching for the hard, thick length of his cock. 

“Not - not just your fingers!” 

“Then what? Use your words. I want to hear you say it in that adorable accent of yours.” 

She buries her face into his neck, feeling her cheeks heat up. She isn’t the least bit cold now and it’s all thanks to him. “Your cock. _Please_.” 

He presses a kiss to her forehead, so soft and at odds with his rough hands. “That’s it. That’s what I wanted to hear. So sweet.” 

He wades through the water until her back is pressed up against one side of the pool. He’s made it unnecessarily complicated for himself by having to peel off the thoroughly soaked clothes that stick to his skin, but Rey gladly helps with this. First the polo, up and over his head. She wrings it out and throws it over her shoulder onto the pool deck. Next come his chinos and boxers. This proves to be more difficult, as he tries to hold her, kiss her, _and_ undress himself at the same time. Once she’s able to convince him to let go of her momentarily to pull everything off, though, things progress quickly. Wet limbs sliding against one another, wet tongues exploring the heat of each other's mouth. 

When he presses into her, the thick head of his cock drags along her walls in a way that makes her shiver, and they both groan as he slides home inside of her, bottoming out. 

Having sex in water is...different. The change in gravity prevents Ben from going as fast, but Rey finds this isn’t a bad thing at all. Every time he slowly pulls her up his length, every time he pulls her hips back down so his balls press against the cheeks of her ass...it’s perfect. And the _dirty talk_ he’s saying, his filthy words drowning out the sound of the pool water sloshing around as they move as one...it only adds to the experience. 

“I’m gonna - fill you up. Every night. Keep you coming on my cock. I’ll keep you satisfied. Anytime anyone even _looks_ at you they’ll know - _fuck_ _!_ \- that someone keeps you well-fucked. That you’re _mine_. You’re gonna be mine. Always, Rey. Won't you?” 

Her hands, already tangled in his wet hair, grip his locks harder for purchase. “ _Ben_. Yes.” 

“Yeah? You’re gonna be my girl? My wife? Always satisfied, always glowing?” 

Rey’s eyes have been closed, her head thrown back as her loses herself in the feeling of him, but with _that_ mention of a wife - of her being _his_ _wife_ , said so casually in the heat of the moment…that gets her full attention, and her eyes shoot open in shock. She looks down at him, finding his dark eyes already scanning her face possessively, his teeth bared in a snarl as he pistons his hips up against her. 

The orgasm that rips through her in response catches them both by surprise, but he continues to fuck her through it.

“Fuck. Shit! Your pussy - squeezing the life out of me. You liked me saying that, didn’t you? You like thinking about being my wife? What else do you think about, Rey? Or should I guess? ” 

Rey can only nod furiously, breathlessly. She tries to hide her face against his neck again as the aftershocks of her orgasm course through her but he won’t let her. Just like their very first time together. He wants to see what he can of her face in the dark. Wants to gauge her every reaction, no matter how embarrassed she is. 

“What do you want, Rey? You want to get married? I’ll marry you in an instant, baby. I’ll buy you a ring and everything. My little wife wearing the ring I bought her? _Fuck_. You’ll be gorgeous. You _are_ gorgeous.” 

“Ben. Keep going,” she whimpers, unsure of whether she means his words, his movements, or both. 

Maybe both? 

Both, yes. Definitely.

Both at once are _doing things_ to her, crazy things, pushing her past her initial orgasm and steadily hurtling towards another. 

“I’ll keep going, princess. I’ll give you just want you want. What do you want Rey? Tell me.” 

She can think of one thing in particular but she can’t tell him that. She’ll die of mortification. It’s too soon. Too, too soon. Even more ‘too soon’ than talking about marriage. But she wants it, God, she wants it. She’s wanted it her entire _life_ _,_ but she can’t bring herself to say the words. 

“You know what I want, Rey?” Ben pants, when she isn’t forthcoming with an answer. “You want me to tell you, sweetness?” 

“ _Yes_ _,_ ” Rey all but sobs, clinging to him.  

Ben is close to losing control, his breathing ragged, his hard length throbbing inside of her when he bites out, “I want you to have my babies. Will you, Rey? Will you start a family with me?” 

 _He_ _knows_ _._ Somehow, he figured out what she wanted to say, and echoed it himself. Her skin, already impossibly hot despite the chill, turns feverish as she forces herself to respond to his question this time. “Y-yes!” 

“Yes? Fuck, Rey. That’s really what you want?” Reaching between their bodies, he massages her pelvis with the palm of his hand, pressing against her, giving their coupling even more friction, even more tightness. “You want me to put a baby in you? Here?” 

Rey comes embarrassingly loud and fast, the orgasm sneaking up on her just like it did before. Except this time, Ben is right there with her, his hot seed spilling into her as he growls out a similar stream of words to the ones he’s just said. 

\---

Ben luckily remembers the code to the guesthouse. They sneak inside and cuddle under the covers of the master bed upstairs, both of them too tired to shower the chlorine smell off of them. 

Rey runs her fingers through Ben’s drying locks as he rests his head on her chest, his eyelashes tickling her skin. His breathing turns heavy and even, and she’s almost convinced he’s asleep when he murmurs, “Were you...serious? About what you said in the pool?”

She knows what he’s talking about. The mentions of marriage. Of children. There’s no use denying it. Everything she’d said had come from the heart and been entirely true. She wants to marry him. She wants to have a family. It’s still way too soon for either one to actually happen but deep down, she knows she wants those things for herself. For him. 

For them. 

“Yeah, I was serious,” she confesses, whispering the words, a tiny, dwindling part of her still fearful that he won’t feel the same now that the sex is over.

Ben sighs, pressing a sleepy kiss to her breastbone. “Good. So was I.” 

That tiny inkling of a doubt diminishes even further, until it’s extinguished entirely like a dull flame. 

\---

If either Ben or Rey had been awake and up at the main villa at 5 a.m. amongst family and friends, they would’ve heard five names revealed as Best Actor nominees for the 91st Academy Awards:

 

Christian Bale in _Vice_.

 

Bradley Cooper in _A Star is Born_.

 

Willem Dafoe in _At Eternity’s Gate_.

 

Rami Malek in _Bohemian Rhapsody_. 

 

And…

 

Ben Solo in _Starkiller_. 

 

But they sleep through that, and the bevy of congratulatory calls from Ben’s management team afterward, and even a disgruntled Han Solo who shows up at the guesthouse at 6 a.m. on Leia’s orders to investigate where his son had disappeared to. 

They sleep through it all, unconcerned and unbothered by how much their lives have changed overnight and how much they’ll continue to change in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Because they still have each other.  

And that is more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this would be the last chapter? LOL jk. Idek why I'm still surprised at my poor chapter planning seeing as my outlining is nonexistent. But really, FOR REAL this time, next chapter is the VERY LAST & will be the true epilogue with the timeskip etc. I promise! ❤️️ Thank you to everyone who has supported this fic. I am severely behind on comments but I'll catch up! 
> 
> This chapter's moodboard is by my lovely beta and dear friend Keely. She also made a [Bespoke playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1v52n3bAPjrfZ83ZJFvIwM)! *plays Sharp Dressed Man on repeat 🤘*  
>    
> [My twitter](https://twitter.com/alfreylo)
> 
>  
> 
> Things referenced this chapter, if you're interested:
> 
> Oatmeal banana pancakes are a thing I made in college. I just kind of wing the recipe now but [here's one](https://amindfullmom.com/gluten-free-blender-pancakes/) if you wanted to make it too!
> 
> [What is ESMOD?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESMOD)
> 
> [Griffith Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_Park)
> 
> The solo mansion is heavily inspired by [this house](https://homesoftherich.net/2016/08/villa-grande-bellezza-a-21-995-million-newly-built-mansion-in-beverly-hills-ca/) but just picture it...even bigger? lol
> 
> Starkiller opens on a cold-open anachronistic scene, also called a ["How We Got Here"](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HowWeGotHere). Breaking Bad has a lot of them so I drew inspiration from that.


	12. Epilogue

\---

  _One Year Later_

“Okay, so Ben…I’m sure you know this by now, but you’ve got this look that just sort of screams ‘I’m BIG, don’t mess with me or I’ll cut you’. And I mean, the first part of that is true. There’s no disputing the fact that you are a big guy - you’re what, 6’3”?”

Ben shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “6’3”, yeah.”

“Right. So I think your physical appearance, paired with these larger-than-life roles you’re gaining accolades for - Kylo Ren last year, and Pale this one - people tend to think you’re just as intimidating, just as terrifying. But, you know, aside from...one isolated incident last year with some paps - this cue card says not to go into that, so I won’t, here look, I’ll just—” 

Poe Dameron rips the cue card into pieces and throws the bits over his shoulder for comedic effect. The audience eats it up and even Ben manages a small smile. He’s never been asked about the paparazzi incident on television before, and he’s doing a remarkable job at staying cool. 

“Alright alright, what I’m trying to say here is that you seem...really down to earth. A good guy. You and your family, your parents, you have this fostering and adoption organization…” Poe looks down at his cue card. “ _Skywalker-Solo Group_ , right? Your family has done a lot of meaningful advocacy work with immigrants and refugee families lately. Respect, man. And you’re also behind this really interesting new program for young actors with vision impairments.” 

Ben nods, uncrossing and crossing his legs again. He’s nervous, yes, but his nerves aren’t nearly as bad as they’ve been during some of the interviews he’s given in the past. “Is...there a question behind all of this?”

The audience laughs at that and Poe joins in with them. 

“Okay, I’ll stop rambling. Sorry, I’m kind of starstruck! I’ve never had a Solo on the show before. What I’m trying to ask is: _is_ there anything wrong with you? I mean, truly? Some people - the paps, the press - they paint you as literal satan. But how satanic could someone who’s done all of these really amazing things be? Right?” The audience starts to clap and Poe looks out into the crowd, throwing up his arms. “Am I wrong? How awesome is this guy?!”

More cheering and clapping, along with some screams from what can only be Ben’s devoted fanbase in the audience. He waits for most of the commotion to quiet down before responding to Poe’s question. 

“That’s...really flattering, thank you. It’s been an eye-opening experience for me to be involved in these projects I’m passionate about. And the fact that I’m able to draw awareness to them with an audience this size...it’s an honor and a privilege, really.” He nods at the audience in recognition and a few more screams erupt. What would normally be a grimace at the noisy fans he masks as a self-deprecating kind of grin. “As for whether there’s anything wrong with me...of course there is.” He smiles again but this one is entirely sincere and sweet. “My fianceé would have a thing or two to say about that. More than a thing or two, actually. She probably has a list of what’s wrong with me. She keeps me grounded, lets me know when I need to trim my nose hairs or haven’t done the dishes, that sort of thing.” 

“Dude, I have the worst nose hairs! Should we compare them?” Poe asks, leaning in to excitedly pat Ben’s arm. 

Ben actually laughs this time. “Can your cameras do a close-up?” 

The audience erupts into laughter again. Rey can’t help but join in. She’s currently standing in the middle of the living room of the Solo’s guest house where she and Ben are staying for the week. Amilyn Holdo is on her knees doing some last minute sewing to the hem of Rey’s dress. Leia’s watching the TV on the couch with her two elderly dogs: an Italian Greyhound called Pio and a chubby Boston Terrier called Artoo. Artoo lets out a series of loud sneezes that interrupt the rest of Ben and Poe’s funny nose hair segment but Rey doesn’t mind. She’d been there when he’d recorded it last night, silently cheering for him off to the side of the studio’s stage.  

“He’s come a long way since last year. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘effortlessly charming’ like Han is in interviews, but he’s got that spark. You can just tell how happy he is, Rey,” Leia says fondly.

“He seemed _especially_ happy when he mentioned his fiancée _,_ ” Holdo agrees. 

Rey smiles, feeling a blush creep over her skin. It’s been close to a month since Ben proposed and she still hasn’t gotten used to hearing him say _my fianceé._ Every time he does it, or anytime anyone else mentions it, her stomach fills with butterflies, making her so happy that she feels like she could burst from all the love she has for him. And seeing his comeback unfold after last year’s consecutive Golden Globe and Oscar losses...how he’s beaten the odds and received nominations _two years_ in a row, how he’s won the Golden Globe this year and is one of the strongest contenders for an Academy Award, too...she’s so unbelievably proud of him. So, so proud. 

Which is why she’s finally worked up the courage to make her first red carpet appearance with him at the Oscars this Sunday. She’s still scared shitless, of course, but it’s the very least she can do. He’s been there for her through everything. Their long-distance relationship when she still lived in L.A. full-time and he was filming _Burn This_. Her decision to move across the country to New York to be with him. Pursuing legal action for r_casterfo’s invasion of privacy. 

Through everything, every decision she’s made, he’s been unconditional in his love and support. And she’s going to do the same for him. 

Tears prick at Rey’s vision and she hastily wipes them away, but not before Holdo and Leia notice. 

“Rey? What’s wrong?” Leia asks, scooping up Pio from the couch and coming over to see her. 

“Oh, Rey, is it the dress?” Holdo quickly stands and takes Rey’s hands in hers, genuine concern written all over her face. “It’s not too late to go with something different. We can go to my studio tomorrow and pick something out. It won’t be a one-of-a-kind like this dress is, but—”

“No, no, the dress is _wonderful,_ Amilyn. I don’t want to change a thing about it,” Rey squeezes her hands gently, trying to assure her, although the pesky tears keep clouding her vision. 

Leia leans in to gently pat her back. “Oh, honey. It’s okay. Feeling overwhelmed?” 

“I-I...maybe? I guess so,” Rey blubbers, and she keeps blubbering once Leia pulls her into a hug and kisses her cheek. Damn it, why is she so emotional lately? 

“Keep that dog _away_ from the dress, Leia. I don’t want to find a single piece of fur from him when I’m finished here today,” Holdo admonishes, pointing to Pio. He trembles a bit in Leia’s arms, looking guilty and worried like he usually does. 

Leia sighs, moving out of arm’s length from Rey. “It’s going to be just fine, Rey. The red carpet, the awards. All of it. And you look _stunning_. Ben won’t know what hit him. You’re going to have to beat him away with a stick all night.” 

Rey laughs through her tears. Leia’s probably right about that. It’s been over a year and Ben still acts like he can’t get enough of her. 

“I’m just...I’m just _really_ happy. Between Ben’s proposal and these nominations, I can’t help it. Sorry. I’m being silly.” Rey wipes her eyes again, feeling more than a bit embarrassed. She’s in a _couture dress_ made by Amilyn Holdo herself. One would think she’d be composed, confident, and ready to take on anything, wearing a piece of clothing this special. Instead she’s a crying, mascara-streaked mess. If she’s this much of a wreck on Sunday, she’s going to need Finn to use the strongest waterproof makeup that he has on her. 

Holdo lets go of her hands and steps back, giving her an appraising once-over. “Happy is good, Rey! It suits you. And don’t be sorry. Emotions run high for everyone during award season as you well know. Do you want to take a final look at yourself in a mirror before I‘m done?” she asks kindly. 

Rey nods, grateful for the change in subject. “Yes, please.” 

All three of them make their way to the ground floor guest bedroom. This one is fairly modest in size compared to the one upstairs but it has an impressive full-length mirror inside. Rey approaches it and then stops, stunned, when she gets a good look at herself in the dress. 

Her face is smeared in makeup, just like she expected. 

But the rest of her… 

She’s blown away. Amilyn has completely outdone herself and it shows. 

The dress is dazzling despite its lack of color. The sweetheart bodice is a soft black velvet, gently fading with an ombré effect into a pleated white skirt made of silk organza, embellished with hundreds of tiny glass beads and crystals. 

It’s exactly what Rey had wanted: something that Ben could fully appreciate. Something that wouldn’t require him to guess its true color. Something that would help ground him amidst all the colors on the red carpet and the bold fashion choice she’d talked him into for his own tux. 

It also purposely matches her black and white diamond engagement ring. Rey holds her left hand against the dress, smiling as the jewels from her ring and her dress all twinkle in the late-afternoon sun streaming in through the window. 

“Well?” Amilyn asks. “What do you think?” 

“I think...I _love_ it,” Rey whispers.  

\---

 

_Day of the Academy Awards_

Rey opens the door to the bathroom and steps out, finding Ben exactly where she left him, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands over his eyes. 

“Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

Ben lowers his giant hands from his face. Rey’s heart beats wildly in her chest as she watches him take her in. She knows she looks nice; she’s been locked away with Finn, Rose, Kaydel, and Jess nearly all day getting ready and they’ve done a fantastic job at making her look presentable. 

Rose has styled her hair into a loose chignon at the nape of her neck, with a few tendrils artfully framing her face. And _Finn!_ Finn has somehow managed to airbrush her skin so it’s silky smooth while still accentuating her natural features like her freckles. Her eye makeup is minimal; just some (waterproof!) mascara and eyeliner, but he’s given her a bold, ruby red lip to compensate. 

 _“This lipstick is so longlasting, it lasts through blowjobs_ ,” Finn had said earlier, before quickly retracting, “ _Not that I would know. My_ friend _said that._ ”

“ _Oh, shut up, Finn. We’re not in high school. Rey knows we’re dating and have a sex life_ ,” Rose had cut in, coming up behind Finn and playfully slapping his ass. He hadn’t missed a beat in applying her makeup, but he had sworn a bit under his breath as Rose continued, “ _And yeah, I can confirm that lipstick stays on through_ everything _. Kiss that emo actor of yours as much as you’d like tonight_.”

As Ben stands up and walks towards her slowly, his eyes raking over her entire body, it looks like the first kiss of the night is imminent. 

“Black and white,” he states. “Nice choice.” 

Rey smirks. “Thanks. Some guy I like has taught me the value of subtracting color instead of adding more in.” 

“‘Some guy you like’, huh?” Ben murmurs, pulling Rey flush against him. His hands slide down either side of her body. From her shoulders, her arms, to the flare of her hips and down to her ass. He grabs her there gently, mindful of the delicate organza fabric of her gown. He’s come a long way from the man who so carelessly destroyed expensive clothing a year ago. 

Rey nods as he touches her, gasping. “I wanted to wear something that reminded me of him. Did I do a nice job?” 

“ _Fuck,_ Rey. It fits you like a glove. And I don’t have to guess the colors, that’s always a plus.”

“I know. I wanted it that way. You like it?” 

He kisses her, deeply, his mouth lingering over hers as he says, “I love it. And you. God, I love you. I’ll never let you forget it.” 

Rey’s heels are so high, she only has to reach a little bit to kiss him on the tip of his nose. “And I love you. So much. How are you feeling about the tux?” 

Ben grimaces a bit. “It’s...soft, I’ll give it that. Very comfortable.” 

Rey runs her hands along his muscular, velvet-clad arms. “Mhm. Velvet is in right now, too. Very fashionable. And what about the color? Do you like it a _little_ bit more now that it’s on and fitted properly?” 

He sighs. “No. Still looks horrible to me. Like vomit.”

Rey bites her lip. She’d ordered this present around Christmas and had originally planned on giving it to him then, but decided to hold out until now, knowing the wait would be worth it. “Do me a favor. Go and stand by the mirror?”  

“What?”

“Just humor me.” 

“O...kay?” He crosses to the full length mirror as Rey quickly cards through her open suitcase in the corner of the room until she finds what she’s looking for. Then she walks up behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle in a hug. 

“What’s that?” Ben nods at their reflection, to the rectangular box Rey has in her hand. 

“A present for you.” 

“A present? What for?”

“Open it and see.”

He takes it from her, inspecting the plain black box. Upon opening the lid, he cocks a brow. “Sunglasses?”

“Try them on.” 

“Now?”

“Yes, now. I think you’ll like them.” 

Unable to hide her grin anymore, Rey watches as Ben slips the glasses on. 

She can tell the second he realizes they aren’t just regular sunglasses. His jaw drops as he takes his reflection in. He touches the fabric of his tux as if he’s seeing it for the first time, and she supposes that is technically true. 

“See? The color looks beautiful on you. A deep maroon. I wouldn’t ever let you wear a suit that wasn’t flattering,” she says. 

“Rey, I - Holy shit, your lips!” He turns around to look at her, cupping her face with his hands, turning her head this way and that so he can inspect her lip color. “I can see them. Really see them. Fuck, they’re bright. What color is this? I mean, I know it’s red, but what kind?”

“Ruby.”

“Ruby,” he echoes, his voice sounding tight. “Thank you, baby. No one’s ever - this is—” He’s overcome with emotion, she can tell, which only makes her start to tear up, too. But she can’t turn into a full sob-fest yet. They haven’t even left the house! 

“Now you _really_ don’t have an excuse to not sort the clothes or do the laundry. You _have_ to,” she jokes, determined to lighten the mood again. 

He lets out a watery laugh at that, taking the glasses off and tucking them into an inner pocket of his tux jacket. “And so your master plan is complete.”

“Almost, yeah. I’m also determined to get you on a best-dressed list this year. Now that you know what color your tux is, I think you’ll feel more confident wearing it. You’re going to turn heads tonight, I just know it.”

Ben scoffs. “I’m not a turning-heads type of guy.”

“Yes the hell you are. This will just give people even more of a reason to stare. You’re handsome _and_ stylish.”

“Correction, my fiancée is stylish.”

The fluttering in her stomach is back. “I really like when you say that.”

He kisses her again, first on the lips then on her cheek. “You like when I say all sorts of things.” 

“That’s true, I do.” 

“Like when I say how I’m going to peel you out of this dress later tonight and make good use of the glasses. I’ll find out what color your pussy _really_ is. And your nipples. And your—”

“BEN!” She claps a hand over his mouth at the same time that someone knocks on their door. 

“Mr. Solo? Ms. Jackson? The car is here,” Mitaka calls from the other side of the door. 

“Thank you, Mitaka! We’ll be just a minute!” Rey answers. 

“Sounds good. I’ll tell the driver.”

Rey waits a few seconds and then lowers her voice, removing her hand from Ben’s mouth. “You need to give him a raise. And an all-expenses paid vacation for dealing with us for an entire year.”

Ben grins. “And an award that says ‘Best Cockblocker’. He’s earned it.” 

“He has,” Rey says affectionately. “But let’s keep the receiving of awards to just you. Are you ready?”

Ben nods once, nervously pulling on his cufflinks. “As I’ll ever be.” 

Rey holds out her hand for him to take and smiles encouragingly, stamping down the ball of nerves that she feels herself. “Then let’s do this.” 

\---

The red carpet is, in a word, overwhelming.  

It’s something that Rey doesn’t think she’ll ever grow to like, no matter how many times she does it. It’s crowded, photographers scream from every direction as camera flashes leave spots in her vision, and reporters try to talk to Ben over the noise with varying levels of success. 

But she stays by him through all of it, holding his hand, smiling politely when reporters address her during the interviews. 

And she continues holding his hand when they climb the steps leading to the Dolby theater, when they find their seats in the audience, and when the ceremony begins. She keeps holding onto him, right up to when the Best Actor category is announced, willing every ounce of support and love that she has to flow from her into him. 

Olivia Colman takes the stage to announce the category, as she was last year’s Best Actress recipient. 

“Here are the nominees for performance by an actor in a leading role: Antonio Banderas - _Pain and Glory_. Robert De Niro - _The Irishman_. Jonathan Pryce - _The Pope_. Leonardo DiCaprio - _Once Upon a Time in Hollywood_. And—”

Ben squeezes her hand and Rey squeezes his back.

“Ben Solo - _Burn This_.”

The entire theater applauds. Rey keeps her attention on Ben, reading his every micro expression. The way his brow furrows and he purses his lips. How he bounces his knee. He’s so, so nervous. His hand is shaking in hers but he smiles for the camera, turning his head to catch her eye. Rey mouths ‘I love you’ and Ben’s shoulders relax just a bit as he mouths the same words back to her. 

She’s hoping - _praying_ \- that he gets this award. He’s worked so hard for it. But even if he doesn’t get it...there are so many good things to look forward to. 

Their wedding. 

Ben’s new young actor program. 

New roles in Ben’s career. New clients in hers.

And…

Rey rests her other hand against her still-flat stomach. She hasn’t told him yet, having only found out herself a few days ago after her final dress fitting. But she’ll tell him, soon. She knows he’ll be just as overjoyed as she is. 

Yes, the best is yet to come for them. She can’t _wait_ to experience it all with the love of her life. Ben Solo. First her client-from-hell, then her lover, now her fiancé, and soon-to-be her husband and father of her child.

They’re made for each other. Perfectly suited. 

 _Bespoke_ , some might say. 

Rey smiles, giving Ben’s hand another reassuring squeeze.

Up on the stage, Olivia Colman opens the envelope with the winning name and grins. 

“And the Oscar goes to…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll let you decide whether Ben won his Oscar or not...
> 
>  
> 
> ...Oh who am I kidding, of course he did. I'm a sucker for a happy ending 😭❤️️
> 
> Pio (Threepio) is inspired by Jenna Marbles' nervous nasty boi [Kermit](https://jenna-marbles.fandom.com/wiki/Kermit). Just picture him with golden fur like his sister Peach and that's Pio! Artoo is a nod to my wonderful friend and beta Keely who has a precious elderly boston terrier. Keely also came up with the black and white engagement ring idea! 
> 
> Special thanks to SDMizzen on Twitter (who is an actual NYC stylist, OMG!!) for helping me settle on a dress for Rey. You can view the [actual dress here](https://ralphandrusso.com/couture/autumn-winter-2019/lookbook?look=48) and it is STUNNING. 
> 
> [Colorblind glasses](https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/color-blind-glasses.htm) are an actual thing and have become pretty high tech in recent years! On the topic of colorblindness, I want to thank all of my readers who have shared their experiences with colorblindness or knowing someone who is colorblind! I've learned a lot about it through researching for this fic and hearing from you all 🙂
> 
> Those Oscar nominees alongside Ben are based off actual predictions for the [2020 Academy Awards](https://awardswatch.com/2020-oscar-nomination-predictions-best-actor-july/) (to the surprise of no one, Adam is on this list already). It'll be interesting to see if some of them come true! Also, I decided to have Ben nominated for a film adaptation of Burn This because 1) I still have severe Burn This FOMO over never seeing it so this is my way of coping lol and 2) ADAM DESERVED TO WIN THAT TONY DAMMIT 
> 
> If you liked Bespoke, please consider reading my 6 other Reylo fics:  
> 1) [Say It With Sugar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6371419/chapters/14593351): A chocolate shop au where innocent sugar plums Ben and Rey conquer their social anxiety and fall in love. 
> 
> 2) [Mint To Be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811680/chapters/46908760): Rey has the hots for this new YouTuber called OneHandBartender. But she's also really into this sweet guy she met online called ArmyVet83 (Reylogan). 
> 
> 3) [Get A Little Closer, Let Fold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050705): Canonverse forcebond fingerbanging with a touch of angst. 
> 
> 4) [Olive Garden is for Lovers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224445): More fingerbanging, this time in an Olive Garden.
> 
> 5) [surround me (hold me deep beneath your waves)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994091) and 6) [king of my heart (body and soul)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476094/chapters/41157392): Rey is a size queen. Ben has a massive schlong. What could possibly happen? 
> 
> If you got this far...that's it for notes. Until the next fic, my friends <3 Thank you sooo much for your love and support. I'm still catching up on your lovely comments but I'll get to them all eventually! 
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alfreylo) to chat!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Keely and Michelle for being incredible betas and FoxesDance for help with the title!


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